Signs that Primeval might suck:

Updated on January 12, 2007 By Ken Begg 18 Comments

1) The film’s trailer, TV commercials and poster art run away from the fact that it’s about a killer crocodile, and instead pursue a serial killer angle. In my experience, you’re never doing anyone a favor with this sort of thing.

2) It’s *cough* “based on true events.”

3) It was dumped into a January release (a notorious dead time), instead of the previously scheduled March or April debut.

4) Despite it being the widest release this weekend (2,444 screens), they didn’t provide advance showings for the critics.

5) Sadly, the sheer fact that it’s a killer crocodile movie. Hopefully this year’s other such film, Rogue, will prove better.

6) Oops, almost forgot. They blow the ending in the commercials when they note, “The killer was never caught.” Thanks for the head’s up.

7) Despite being all factual and stuff, the film (egad) boasts a Quint. From the Movie Chicks review: “Jacob (Jürgen Prochnow) [is] their guide and part-time poacher – he has a personal vendetta against Gustave.”

8) Orlando Jones is in the movie, playing (are you sitting down?) a wise-cracking black guy.

9) There’s a character who doesn’t want to kill but the crocodile, but instead capture it alive. Man, the originality of this movie’s characters is dynamite.

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  • Ericb

    “Jacob (Jürgen Prochnow) [is] their guide and part-time poacher – he has a personal vendetta against Gustave.”

    The crocodile is named Gustave?

  • Ericb

    But is the crocodile the result of a secret military/corporate experiment to fight terrorist with an army of primeval, killer crocodiles?

  • Yep, apparently that’s the croc’s ‘real’ name. I think it has a Wikipedia entry.

  • That cliche isn’t covered, although another one is. I’ve often complained with the recent flood of Sci-Fi Channel killer animal movies that no matter, how big the threat, they always feel they need a human villain in there. In other words, they can never focus on the main plot.

    Per one of the two reviews currently posted at Rottentomatoes.com: “Instead, a second storyline is thrown in with some sort of half-assed attempt at social commentary about the genocide in Burundi, South Africa. By scripting this overgrown subplot about a crazy warlord, nicknamed Little Gustave, you are distracted from the actual interesting plotline.”

    Your point isn’t entirely ignored, however. According to the Movieschicks review: “It hits the pinnacle of absurdity when Tim [the main character] starts in on his monologue about how we, as a society, create our own monsters.”

  • Songino

    “1) The film’s trailer, TV commercials and poster art run away from the fact that it’s about a killer crocodile, and instead pursue a serial killer angle. In my experience, you’re never doing anyone a favor with this sort of thing.”

    But the tactic worked so well for The Village…

  • Ericb

    Well, when you tamper in God’s domain you have to expect things like giant, killer crocs.

  • Ericb

    “a second storyline is thrown in with some sort of half-assed attempt at social commentary about the genocide in Burundi”

    Oh yeah, shoehorning real world tragedies into your cheesy monster movie is always a classy idea.

  • Hey! These people are **artists**, man. They have THINGS TO SAY.

    Philistine.

  • Bill Leary

    ” They have THINGS TO SAY.”

    Like “I need a new Porche?”

    I dunno. I figure the killer (aquatic repitile) movie reached it’s peak with “Lake Placid.” I mean, after you’ve had Betty White spout obscenities on screen (and be far more interesting doing so than the monster), what’s left to do?

  • We’ll find out. The people making Rogue have apparently wanted to make this for years, and only got the money after Wolf Creek did well. Hopefully they won’t hash up the job.

    Of course, Snakes on a Plane was nearly flawless, and nobody went to see that, either. So who knows?

  • Songino

    Ken, I love the fact that you call Snakes On a Plane “nearly flawless.” I mean, that statement right there helps describe why I’ve been coming to this site for years.

  • Ken HPoJ

    I can’t help it, Snakes on a Plane *was* nearly flawless. It was pretty much the Platonic Idea of what you want when you go see a movie called Snakes on a Plane. Years go by between b-movies that are that well executed.

    It’s out on DVD now. I’ll have to get a copy and maybe do a nugget piece or something.

  • Having seen the movie (and yes, it is pretty lousy), I can comment on your bullet points:

    1) Turns out that the killer croc flick deceptively marketed as a serial killer flick is really neither, but is instead more of a liberal guilt trip thriller about African genocide and how the rest of the world, especially us affluent American honkies, just don’t give a damn about poor black people killing other poor black people.

    2) Well, there is an impoverished African nation named Burundi that has been involved in a long standing civil war and somewhere in this nation’s waterways lurks a monster crocodile that’s eaten a whole lot of people.

    3) Dumped indeed, and rightfully so.

    4) No advance screenings, and with good reason.

    5) Hell, I think The Asylum’s upcoming SUPERCROC and Roger Corman’s SUPERGATOR will both prove to be better than PRIMEVAL. ROGUE too, but it has the added burden of Dimension “retooling” it.

    6) The killer was never caught? But the evil warlord gets killed in the end. Oh, you meant the croc.

    7) Yeah, a personal vendetta he doesn’t reveal until about 90 seconds before he gets chomped. And this is after he’s been mortally wounded by one of the warlord’s henchmen.

    8) At one point Orlando Jones Jones goes off on a comedic tirade about how much he hates Africa, he even tosses out a few lines about how in retrospect slavery wasn’t a bad thing after all because it got his people out of Africa. It’s embarrassing.

    9) Now to be fair, the news team has been sent to Burundi by orders of the network exec to capture the croc alive in times for sweeps.

    And here’s a bonus that I’ll add:

    10) Croc attack scenes are virtually incomprehensible to watch thanks to the one-two punch of jittery camera work and rapid-fire editing.

    Full review forthcoming. Something happened towards the end of this film that actually made me start booing aloud. That bad.

  • …this movie is about a crocodile? That shows how much I’ve been paying attention.

  • twitterpate

    “10) Croc attack scenes are virtually incomprehensible to watch thanks to the one-two punch of jittery camera work and rapid-fire editing.”

    In other words, not enough money/skill to create decent special effects, so keep the camera moving so fast no one will notice the “croc” is a 1 foot stuffed baby aligator from Florida?

  • Hypnoangel

    In keeping with Snakes On a Plane’s example of no-holding-back blatantly honest titling, maybe they could rename this Croc of Shit.

  • Ed Richardson

    Monster movies about things in rivers, whether they’re giant snakes or crocodiles, seem a bit hokey whenever you can turn on the tv any night and see any one of a series of nature shows where guys flirt with these animals. I know the monster-movie counterparts are more extreme, but they’re also CGI, and that really takes the drama out of it for me, I don’t care how many jump scenes they stud it with. I’ll take the animatronics of Jaws or even Piranha II: The Spawning over CGI monsters any day.

    Triva: P2: The Spawning was James Cameron’s directorial debut. He defended it by saying that it was the best flying piranha movie ever made. Sigh…it’s going to be two years until Avatar comes out.