Paura primordiale

I'm sure that I'm the only person here who really isn't going to bash on this film. Of course, I already knew it was a crocodile in stead of a serial killer. I mean c'mon, if you looked around on the internet you would of known, and the trailer made it apparent. Still I agree that it was a cheesy scam to call this killer croc "the world's most prolific serial killer". Aside from that, the movie had a simple (if not too simple) story line. Croc kills important person, team sent to catch it, croc is smarter then them, they try to survive. If you've seen Lake Placid, then this is generally the same idea. Just subtract one croc, set it in Africa, and put a really funny black guy in. Yeah, Orlando Jones does an exceptional job as Steve and makes you laugh more then once. Unfortunately, the other actors are so-so at best. The croc's animation was decent, but I felt he needed a better design. He just looked like a really big croc rather then anything original. And the gore was disappointing. The animated blood in the raining scenes was laughably bad. Overall, it might be worth a rent when it comes out on DVD, but it isn't going to ever be a vintage horror film. If you've seen Lake Placid, no need to apply here, except that this is the better Lake Placid.

This movie seems to suffer from a low budget. The writing is okay. The plotting was okay. The actors are okay. The special effects are weak. All could have been better. This movie could be compared to Anaconda, but replace the snake with a killer crocodile. Swap out South America and see Africa instead. Unlike Anaconda, Primeval makes a social statement about the political unrest in Africa. In the back drop of filming a crocodile documentary, political unrest and murder is happening all around them. Where this movie suffers is the pacing. It starts out slow and isn't even interesting until the crocodile appears. Once the crocodile appears, that's really all you may care to see. Unfortunately, the special effects are too obvious and the crocodile acts fake and looks fake. It's only at this point that the movie even gets up to the quality of Anaconda which also had fake looking effects.

Orlando Jones as Steven Johnson brings a welcome light touch of humor to an otherwise serious movie. Brooke Langton as Aviva Masters brings a welcome touch of beauty to a dirty and unattractive African setting. The other characters aren't quite as appealing.

This movie is worth seeing, but just barely. Wait for the DVD.

When I realized about 10 minutes into the film that I had paid to see a crocodile movie and not one about a serial killer as advertised, I was mad as h*ll!. For the first time I was about to demand my money back. However, I gave the movie a chance. I did end up enjoying it, but not enough to forgive being duped into paying the price. It is a pretty fun movie, but it's the same thing we've seen before on Sci-Fi Channel for a fraction of the price. To the distributors credit, they knew what they were doing. No one wants to pay to see a run-of-the-mill crocodile movie when they can see an giant reptile, insect, or animal/human hybrid film on cable each weekend. I love "Lake Placid", but if I knew this movie was about a croc I would not have gone to see it. It was a fun film, so if you want to pay to see Sci-Fi fare, you'll enjoy it.

Attempting to tread a fine line between two different types of film, Primeval is a misguided, but nonetheless kind of fun movie. On the one hand, it wants to be an 'issues' movie, dealing with warlords, child soldiers and western apathy towards violence in central Africa. On the other, it also wants to have a massive great big crocodile running around trying to eat the guy from Prison Break. It's not bad, but while these two separate strands never really gel there's still some entertainment to be had. Provided of course you can look past the incredibly tasteless joke about the slave trade.

The film concentrates on Dominic Purcell's news journalist who gets sent off to Burundi to document the search for 'Gustave,' a legendary croc who has chalked up over 300 human victims during his years prowling the river banks. He's accompanied by a British Steve Irwin a-like, Orlando Jones as the "please don't get him" cameraman, a slumming it Jurgen Prochnow, a token female and several dozen expendable locals and together, they trek into the bush to hunt Gustave down. They're also given a few warnings about 'Little Gustave,' a vicious renegade soldier whose private army are responsible for all manner of atrocities in the region. But hey it'll be okay right? They've got a machine gun strapped to the roof...

Needless to say, things go badly. There's all manner of carnage to be had as Gustave begins ripping people to shreds and trigger happy teenagers with AK-47s go on the warpath. By the time the credits roll, just as many people have been machine-gunned as eaten by Gustave and Purcell looks like he can't wait to get back to a nice, comfy cell in San Quentin where he only has to deal with corrupt guards and shankings every day.

Taken simply as an old-fashioned adventure movie it's not bad and there's certainly fun to be had when the limbs start to get torn loose. The attempts at dealing with the bigger picture though fall flat. It's apparently "inspired by true events," but aside from the fact there genuinely is a crocodile named Gustave in Burundi, that's about as far as the realism goes. Hotel Rwanda this ain't. However if you want a movie where a great big scaly beast eats people every ten minutes you can't go wrong. You'll have a hard time remembering any of the characters names when the time comes to type up the review though.

Primeval was geniusly marketed as a slasher film and attempted to get people to pay for a ticket expecting a slasher flick and sucker them outta cash with a crocodile movie.Based on the amount of pi$$ed off people reviewing this film in anger of being scammed i'm going to say they succeeded.Now on to Primeval as a movie yes it has the token black guy, and the sexy blonde wearing pretty much nothing, and the tough guy who takes charge but after seeing Stomp The Yard I wanted to see people die and Primeval did that oh so well.Even though it's not technically a slasher flick it is a gore fest though and an enjoyable one with some very innovative kills and very little to know cheesy scenes.They don't make it intentionally cheesy like Freddy vs Jason, or See No Evil this film is completely serious which makes it more believable and more fun to watch.Is it scary sure if blood scares you but other than that it's the pulse pounding chase scenes that keep you watching and enjoying Primeval.Visually Primeval is beautiful and ugly at the same time as the locations are gorgeous yet the mud or the water looks eerie and murky it really gives you the impression that something is living there and it's not expecting company.Is it clichéd?Please..what movie isn't nowadays and better yet what horror film isn't nowadays so the clichés are easy to ignore and don't hurt the overall excitement of the film.Primeval has disturbing full out gore scenes with all the blood you wanna see and more.It certainly doesn't let you down in that department.Primeval has taught us all a lesson research what movie you're going to see before you go see it because personally i thought it was funny that Primeval screwed most of you other critics outta your money i on the other hand knew what i was going to see and enjoyed every minute of it.Overall ignore the more than likely low IMDb average rating because most critics gave this film a 1 because they were pi$$ed that they didn't get what they wanted like a little kid in a toy store.