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A news
team goes to Africa to capture the legendary,
man-eating crocodile, Gustave - one of the most prolific
serial killers of all time (haha, I had just had to
throw it in there). What they don't know is that
their worst enemy isn't the crocodile, it's something
far less exciting.
Marketed as a slasher flick, I'm sure that Primeval
disappointed many cinemagoers this weekend, because
it's really a creature feature about a killer crocodile.
Or is it? I headed into this expecting Anacondas 2
but with the anacondas replaced with a giant crocodile.
Well I was wrong. Primeval is actually a poorly written
action-thriller about the civil war in Africa, but I
guess that the production company got scared in the
process and decided to throw in a man-eating crocodile
into the mess. It's no surprise that it doesn't work
on any level. Just like with "The Host", Primeval was
simply too crowded with subplots that you quickly
lost interest in what was going on.
We have two main stories here; the civil war and the
giant crocodile and to be honest with you, the giant
crocodile part wasn't all that bad. We get some mildly
entertaining action scenes and a chase scene to die
for. It's too bad that the crocodile looked like it
had just escaped from a low-rent Sci-Fi channel
production. The civil war part however was an utter
catastrophe. I've never seen the point of having a
bunch of bad guys in creature features - let's face
it, creature features are almost always good guys vs.
bad guys + evil creature. And there's just too much
focus on the bad guys in here. Not only is it a
generic concept but it's also dull in so many ways.
The pacing is just terrible as well and shaking the
camera doesn't make the movie go any faster - it just
makes it more annoying to watch. If you thought that
the trailer was migraine-inducing, wait till you see
the actual movie. The only thing really positive I have
to say about the movie is that the cinematography is
great and really captures the beauty of the African
wilderness. Dominic Purcell also gives us a stellar
performance with Brooke Langton by his side.
Ultimately though, Primeval is just a waste of time if
you ask me. No wonder it got dumped in January. If
you're expecting a slasher flick, you're wrong, if
you're expecting a killer crocodile flick, you're...
well... let's just say you won't be satisfied, but
if you're expecting a nonsense action-thriller, you're
dead on! Don't bother.
Some blood and gore flashes and some severed limbs.
Generic hip hop music aside, the score was actually
pretty decent with a tight and aggressive soundtrack
that did the best that it could to keep up the pace.
A solid soundtrack, a poorly animated crocodile, and
some quick flashes of gore simply isn't enough for me
to be able to call this a good movie. On the contrary,
Primeval is actually a pretty damn bad movie and I don't
really understand why this even got a theatrical
release. This should have been a DTV release if you
ask me, or even better - a Sci-Fi premier!
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