Primeval......mini review

[Joe]

first and foremost i want to say that this movie is definetly one of those " you're either gonna love it or hate it" and dont expect an award winning film, i mean its about a giant crocodile. i am a sucker for monster movies so i absolutley dug it.

ok we start off with a reporter messing up a story and putting his "good name" and career in jepordy. his boss offers him( well tells him) a new story that he wants him to direct in africa about a giant crocodile named gustav( and he also wants him to capture it alive)and pretty much if he doesnt take the job hes done. so the guy pairs up with this chick who is an animal reporter and they go to africa and oh yea orlando jones goes with them. so they get to africa and there is a civil war going on and the head badguy is killing innocents left and right( his name is gustave to btw) and his most recent whereabouts are around where are protagonists must venture.....go figure. so now at this point we have a real mean guy to deal with and a big ol crocodile they arent even sure exists yet. so they meet up wiht this hunter and a naturalist and they try to go catch this crocodile. they set a trap, a little african kid named jojo tries to sacrafice himself by putting himself in the cage.(i think thats what he was trying to do) crocodile attacks cage main reporter dude saves jo jo, naturalist shoot gustave wiht tracking device and gets munched. orlando jones tapes gustave(the dude) killing a family, the soldiers that escorted the reporters out their turn on them( attempting to rape the chick) because they work for gustave and want the tape that they have of the slaying, one gets munched by the croc the other get shot in the throat( go jo jo!). the reporters try to escape they run into two more guys who work for gustave some chase scenes with a pick-up chasing people ON FOOT with a guy in the bed shooting at them. jeep flips dude in the bed goes flying and smacks a tree. other guy (huge black guy) beats the s**t out of our main reporter guy and jo jo then the chick blows his head off POINT BLANK(very sweet). the group runs into the crocodile again orlando gets munched. gustave(the guy) shows up in a SUV and wants the tape from the remaining reporters and jo jo, they find out gustave is the guy who escorted them off the plane( real nice fellow named harry) . they lead gustave(man) to the other gustave(croc) via tracking device the naturalist shoots him with earlier in the film and gustave(man) gets munched ina really cool way( all about the head popping in its jaws). finally the last bout with the croc and protags in a croc vs SUV scene and the protagonists get away leaving the croc in a bad mood. the main guy, chick reporter and jo jo not to mention a full intact and working( i dont know how this thing was working it was submerged in water and battered around quite a bit) video camera with the slaying, heart warming memeories of orlando and giant crocodile antics on it flying back to america and oh yea some stupid dog that the chick saved earlier in the film, the end.

i dug it for what it was we get a mucho cool beheading and some sweet croc effects. the story behind the croc was cool, he was big but not rediculously big and they justify the size by telling the audience that he could have gotten that big because it had eaten all the bodies that gustave(man) had slain and at one point the naturalist says that a croc will keep eating and eating till it throws up then eat some more so its half beliveable. 

so i give it  4 slimes for fun factor and giant croc antics good way to kill 2 hours.

[Mr_Vindictive]

I'm very curious about this film.  Looks like a good one, but I don't care for Orlando Jones.

I do love the marketing campaign that they've been doing for the film.  Makes you think it's a serial killer film...

[Joe]

orlando shoudnt even have been in it he takes away from the seriousness of it, hes got a few lines that i chuckled at but nothing to write home about. yea the marketing ploy was pretty slick i slmost got into a fist fight wiht my buddy because he insisted it wasnt a crocodile becuase of the ads and he clamied to have seen "the killer" and that it was "some black dude". when in theory i guess its true but the main focus is the croc.

[Foywonder]

May I offer a second opinion?

PRIMEVAL REVIEW

[Torgo]

I loved how they bumped up the release date from April all the way up to January and then proceeded to marked as a serial killer flick.

but I'll have to see it as I've got a soft spot for giant crocodile type movies. I'm hoping it is enteratining in much the way that I found Lake Placid to be.

[Foywonder]

I loved how they bumped up the release date from April all the way up to January and then proceeded to marked as a serial killer flick.

but I'll have to see it as I've got a soft spot for giant crocodile type movies. I'm hoping it is enteratining in much the way that I found Lake Placid to be.

They were actually using the serial killer marketing gimmick well before they bumped the release date up.

And I'm afraid you're going to be sorely disappointed. LAKE PLACID was a crocodile movie that was actually about a crocodile. There's shockingly little croc action in PRIMEVAL with the focus of the movie ultimately shifting to the people fighting for their lives against African warlords.

[Joe]

Foy, everyone is entitled to their own 

[Dennis]

Having read both reviews I think I'll wait till this one's on cable, it seems that it may be something I'll like, although I don't think I'll want to spend money on it. At the worst it'll kill a couple of hours, at the best I may want to get it on DVD, won't know till I see it. Thank you both, Joe and Foywonder, for the reviews, I enjoyed reading both.

[Duckmancgy]

Well... I think this may be a rent/rip vid.. either that or a previously enjoyed.. still I will have to watch it just cause.

[BoyScoutKevin]

I hope to see it this Saturday, that is if the freezing weather holds off, where I live. I've been meaning to see it, since it was released, I liked the trailer for it, but the weather has been so bad, that I didn't want to get out on the icy streets. I just hope they don't show too much of the monster, and too soon, that always ruins those B-film monster movies for me. And, supposedly, the story, which the film is based on, is true.

[BoyScoutKevin]

I'll just add to what I posted previously. Some of which I have already posted at another board. Which I won't repeat.

Likes
Much that I ask of a movie is to give me a look at a life that is dissimiliar from my own. And this did it. The African in Africa. The reporter trying to get a story out under difficult circumstances.

Dislikes
The acting.
Some of it. Though it seem to get better as the movie progressed.

The script.
Some of it. Some of the scenes worked quite well. Some did not.

Questionable
The ending
I like a clean ending. This one did not (IMHO) While one of the villains was dead. The other one was still alive and out there killing.

SFX
Though probably no worst or better than "Alligator," which is the last croc/gator film I've seen.

And on a more personal level . . .
I don't like the fact, that as a man, I may not be at the top of the food chain.

I also don't like the fact that there are things out there, both two-legged and four-legged, that want me dead.

Conclusion
Low ball one's expections and don't go in expecting much, and one might like it. And if one doesn't like it, there are horror films like "The Witnesses," "Hannibal Rising," and "Invisible" coming up. Though, probably I'll see only the last one, as it plays more like a mystery than a horror film, instead of a retread and a prequel.