Television producer Tim Manfrey (Dominic Purcell) leads a team down to the Burundi section of Africa to investigate and try to capture a large killer crocodile dubbed Gustave, who has been killing and eating hundreds of natives.
After reading the plot synopsis, I was expecting something similar to Anaconda which was a cheesy, entertaining movie that didn't take itself too seriously. The preview did scare me in the sense that they didn't mention the alligator aspect at all. I don't get why the studio would hide that fact since it would be the movie's main draw. Also, the preview looked very underwhelming. However, my friend wanted to see it which we did and now I wish we had seen something else. Primeval is neither scary nor entertaining. Instead, it is dull, wooden and it doesn't have an ounce of personality.
Director Michael Katleman should get the blame for this. He kept the movie way too serious and the pacing was very slow which made the whole thing tedious. He added unnecessary social commentary and he didn't do a good job at mixing it with entertainment. He also didn't take advantage of shooting in Africa, failing to capture the beauty of the location. I thought it was impossible but he made Africa look ordinary. Also, everything was very dark and annoying. I don't mean the film was actually a dark comedy but everything seemed to be shot at night and it was hard to follow the action. I guess this was done to lower budget costs but it didn't help when it came to actually view the movie. The screenwriters (Michael Ferris (III) and John D. Brancato) were equally useless although this should not be surprisingly since this pair wrote Catwoman. The one good thing about the movie was the alligator and all of his attack scenes. They were somewhat entertaining even if they did look fake.
The acting was just as bad as the writing and directing. Dominic Purcell was horrible as Tim. He was very wooden and he showed no emotion. This was clearly a paycheck movie for him since he appeared to be reading his lines. Brooke Langton was enormously bland and just useless. Orlando Jones was surprisingly bad and I say surprisingly because he's usually pretty reliable in supporting roles. Here, he was wooden and bland, just like his co-stars. Overall, Primeval is simply terrible and it's not worth checking out unless you love bad films.
2/10 for this crap.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
A very thrilling and fun monster movie, in the tradition of Jaws. It's smart, exciting, nail-biting and action-packed. An edge of your seat thriller with a realistic turn at a true story. A great cast of compelling and teriffic actors.
Post a Comment