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List Price: $19.99 | | Label: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Salesrank: 23882
Released: June 12, 2007 |
| Our Price: $4.48 |
| Used Price: $0.40 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Inspired by the true story of a legendary 25-foot man-eating crocodile comes the intense, terrifying horror movie PRIMEVAL, starring Dominic Purcell (TV's PRISON BREAK) and Orlando Jones (RUNAWAY JURY, EVOLUTION). An American news crew, determined to capture this voracious monster and stop his demonic rampage, travel deep within the darkest reaches of Africa to hunt their prey. But Gustave, as the natives call him, is also on the hunt — always on the move, always elusive, always hungry for human flesh. Heart-pounding fear is nonstop in this edge-of-your-seat nail-biter about the cunning killer who continues to blaze his blood-soaked trail of terror.
Description of Primeval:
Who would have thought that Primeval, a movie about a giant man-eating crocodile, would turn out to be closer in spirit to Hotel Rwanda and Blood Diamond than to the average slasher-movie horror flick? Perhaps it doesn't aim at the social-issue heights of those more prestigious films, and the acting is uneven to say the least, but give this monster movie credit for trying to get in the smart, edgy vein of some of John Sayles's early scripts for Roger Corman. A cable-TV news crew travels to Burundi to capture footage of (and, if possible, just plain capture) the enormous crocodile that's been terrorizing the local landscape. Making things more complicated: the local landscape is also being terrorized by a civil war. The film does a clever job of weaving the two scourges together, and the script by John Brancato and Michael Ferris pays surprisingly explicit attention to the way the West has been slow to acknowledge human-rights disasters in Africa, calling out Rwanda and Darfur by name. Now if only the characters were more than cardboard-thin; only Orlando Jones, doing the standard-issue wisecracking black sidekick, makes any particular impression. (Poor Jurgen Prochnow, glowering about in the Great White Hunter role--you'd think the guy who commanded Das Boot could knock off a giant reptile, no problem.) Pedestrian direction doesn't bring the human element to life, but give it up for a fine crocodile--his name is Gustave--who exists in a nifty, hungry computer-generated frenzy for most of his performance. And the script even provides Gustave some behavioral motivation that recalls the it's-not-their-fault-it's-man's-fault spirit of 1950s monster movies. Not a bad effort at all. --Robert Horton
Primeval Reviews:
A little more crocodile that's on the front, a little less angry african militia 
2009-11-25 - When I bought this movie (for 15 cents used) I knew what I was getting myself into. I enjoy a crappy creature film here and there, and I was expecting just that. I was expecting bad cg and bad acting, and got that..but I didn't get as much slice n' dice I was hoping for. <<<<>>>>>>>> Only 3-4 people died from the crocodile...the rest from some angry African militia...it was just disapointing. The cg alone was better than most creature films that disapoint...but I'd rather see a bunch of unrealistic crocodile cg than the Samuel L. Jackson wannbe militia leader terrorizing the reporters. I offer my review for 2 reasons...1 that I'm bored. And 2 -just incase someone doesn't know any better and goes into this movie hoping for another Lake Placid, which this certainly wasn't.
Guess who's coming to dinner? 
2009-09-08 - A brutal civil war in impoverished Burundi. A legendary, 25-foot croc named Gustave who has terrorized the local population for hundreds of years. Okay, I get the metaphor, which is why I enjoyed PRIMEVAL, an uneven, often silly, gore fest that still kept my attention throughout its villain's ever-more preposterous feats of carnivorous bloodletting. At the end ol' Gustave is wearing a car for a necklace, but I digress.
When a cable news crew is sent deep into East Africa to film (and even dare to capture) the legendary croc, they suddenly find themselves embroiled in Burundi's nasty civil conflict. Thus PRIMEVAL embarks on its nonstop violence, with the conflict reaching the shores of Gustave's habitat--and Gustave joins the party. The imagery is intentionally gritty, jerky, out of focus, with much of the action just off camera--all for that documentary "feel". And Gustave himself, in all his CGI glory, can cover dry ground like a cruise missile. Now that's evolution.
The cast is as unexceptional as it is forgettable; however I did recognize Orlando Jones (the former 7UP pitchman). In true horror film form the protagonists endure multiple gun wounds, stabs, blows to the head and additional trauma, yet still pull off herculean feats of last-second bravery. Again, it's silly, yet PRIMEVAL, with its metaphor depicting unspeakable brutality and inhumanity, does get its point across. Now if we could just set up a foot race between Gustave and Usain Bolt. . .
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning
The end when the croc jumps into the rear-end of the 4x4
2009-07-26 - I just saw the tail (lol) end of this film. I thought the shots of the croc jumping in through the back window looked awesome. Shot in silhouette was gr8. I liked the dog, too.
"Lake Placid" meets "Sometimes in April" meets "Jaws".
2009-05-13 - Primeval isn't a terrible movie as far as it goes. It has some action, some thrills and some drama, all of which are not given with an empty hearted attempt, but neither are they given with a whole hearted attempt. Perhaps that is the big problem with the movie is that it tries to be all three kinds of film and in the end falls just short in all three.
However, if you are in the mood for a nature eats man kind of movie Primeval's "Gustav" may be just what you want.
2 ½*
2-Movies-In-One...
2009-04-08 - Big lizard eats lots of people in Burundi, causing the US to send its best reporters to cover the slaughter. Uh-oh, there seems to be a civil war going on too! Oh no, the rival bloodshed might interfere w/ the sensational croc-story! No problemo! We'll just have the insanity of war weave in and out of the monster-on-the-loose story! Personally, I just wanted a good old fashioned animal-runs-amok movie like JAWS, GRIZZLY, CUJO, ROGUE, or even MOUSE HUNT! Instead, I got a political thriller w/ occasional crocodilian havoc. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood. To me, it was like if V FOR VENDETTA had an escaped go-rilla running rampant in between scenes of totalitarian oppression. Oh well...
