Primeval

After a noted scientist is killed by what can only be described as some sort of beast an expedition is sent to track it down. Dealing with their own problems, conflicts, and the fact they are in country torn part by civil war.

The film starts as a typical monster flick with an intense death scene and a hint of political agenda. It then proceeds to be a typical creature feature with some decent gore and terror, but the political agenda brought up subtly in the beginning resurfaces and the film becomes mismatched. Fans of gore and horror will have fun with the gore and horror, but the political theme is sorely out of place. It is hard to say that it is irrelevant, because if it was well developed it could serve as a decent metaphor.

Godzilla, for one, is a monster metaphor - the bastard of the nuclear age. Here that is what the film tries to do with Gustave - the HUGE killer croc. It fails - whether it is noble failure or pathetic failure is ultimately up to you - but the failure to intertwine themes and idea throughout the movie results in this mismatching. Things just seems to appear out of nowhere, like a long sequence where the main beast literally disappears from the film. It was right there in the previous scene, but for a while it is gone. Then it is conveniently back for the conclusion. In a funny way this seems to be a monster horror flick from the Sci-Fi channel that has the seriousness of "Blood Diamond" here and there. That just doesn't work, folks. Metaphors and themes must be a pervasive presence to work. --- 4/10

Rated R: graphic violence/gore and profanity

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.

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.

I have no idea why, but from the cover and short summary in back, I thought that Primevil might have been an entertaining horror film. I'm not really into crocodile stories, they usually don't work, but for some reason this one looked very promising. When I started watching it, I kept checking the cover just to make sure I was on track, but the story just seemed to get lost somewhere. Now I don't mind different stories, but the cover promised something else and I wasn't even really that entertained or moved by the story.

Basically there is a killer crocodile in Africa, apparently he is a big one to be very frightened of. So an American crew of reporters wish to capture the beast or get him on film so they can help these villages and become famous more so. But there is another major problem that takes the story to a completely different place, where there is a huge war going on and starts to terrorize these reporters and one by one they are killed off before the crocodile gets to them.

Primevil would have had good potential for a horror movie, but it just went in an intense turn where you had no idea where the film would take you. The script was also in some ways done in poor taste and wasn't well thought out, like I'm not offended easily usually when it comes to racial jokes, but Orlando going on about slavery in Africa went a little too far and was ridiculous. The acting is so so, not the worst I've seen, but the effects are not that impressive, a warning in advance. But if you would like to check out this film, please feel free, but I wouldn't really recommend it.

3/10

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.