Primeval

Plot

In Burundi, a British forensic anthropologist is examining the corpses in a mass grave, claiming they were all killed in an identical manner. When the woman digs her shovel into the ground, an unseen creature suddenly attacks and violently drags her into the river. The UN soldiers accompanying her fire their weapons into the water, until they notice a part of her excruciatingly mutilated body float back to the surface, before being suddenly pulled underwater by a creature hidden underneath.

In a New York City newsroom, television journalist Tim Manfrey is assigned by his boss, Roger Sharpe, to travel to Burundi with Aviva Masters, a reporter who deals with animal stories to investigate the legend of Gustave, a gigantic, fierce Nile crocodile known to have killed hundreds of people in Africa over the years. With the killing of the anthropologist, Gustave has become an interesting subject to the world. Despite knowing Burundi is a war zone, Tim reluctantly agrees to go because one of his stories is based on falsified evidence. Tim and Aviva are accompanied by Tim's cameraman, Steven Johnson, and herpetologist Matt Collins, intending to capture Gustave alive.

At the airport in Bujumbura, the team meets a government official named Harry, who delays their departure by warning them about the dangers and political unrest in the bush caused by a ruthless warlord nicknamed "Little Gustave". Tim brushes Harry aside by faking a call to Roger, and the team departs to search for the crocodile, accompanied by two soldier escorts. The team reaches the village where the last attack occurred, meeting their guide and licensed hunter Jacob. They are blessed by the local shaman, who explains the legend of Gustave and humanity's dark nature, which breeds its own monsters. The team devises a plan to capture Gustave using a steel cage with a live goat as bait. The friendly villagers assemble the cage and place it in a nearby riverbank. Gustave senses a human trap and elusively swims away into the dark river. Matt manages to shoot it with a GPS tracking dart to locate the crocodile in real time.

Steven films the shaman and his family being executed by men working for Little Gustave. The night, while Steven and the others debate about airing the footage of the execution, "Jojo", a teenage villager who helped set up the cage, sneaks in to use himself as human bait. The crocodile ambushes and unsuccessfully tries to devour Jojo, before disappearing in the water. Meanwhile, Aviva catches one of the soldier escorts stealing money from a tent. The escort knocks her down and attempts to assault her. Gustave kills the soldier, ransacks the camp, and slips away. Aviva escapes unharmed and catches up with the others. The other escort relays over his radio that the Americans videotaped the shaman's execution. Believing Jacob to be responsible, the soldier wounds him and is then killed by Jojo. While Jacob's wound is being treated, Gustave tracks down the group and attacks their stilt house. Jacob recalls the story of how his wife Ona was killed by Gustave, and that he swore revenge by killing the beast. Jacob sacrifices himself to kill the crocodile with a grenade, but it fails to detonate. Gustave grabs Jacob in its jaws and savagely devours him.

Cast

Dominic Purcell as Tim Manfrey

Brooke Langton as Aviva Masters

Orlando Jones as Steven Johnson

Jurgen Prochnow as Jacob Krieg

Gideon Emery as Matt Collins

Gabriel Malema as Jojo

Linda Mpondo as Gold Tooth

Lehlohonolo Makoko as Beanpole

Dumisani Mbebe as Hahutu 'Harry' Mkwesa / 'Little Gustave'

Eddy 'Big Eddy' Bekombo as Ato

Chris April as Captain

Ernest Ndlovu as Shaman

Erica Wessels as Dr. Cathy Andrews

Vivian Moodley as Indian UN Officer

Lika Berning as Rachel (as Lika van den Bergh)

Andrew Whaley as Senator Richard Porter

Patrick Lyster as Roger Sharpe

Jaqui Pickering as Newscaster (as Jacqui Pickering)

Kent Shocknek as Newscaster

Mathias Tabotmbi as Villager

Kgmotoso Motlosi as Shaman's Son

Thandi Nugbani as Shaman's Wife

Production

The idea for the film came about from then Walt Disney Pictures President Oren Aviv who read an article about the elusive man-eating Nile crocodile Gustave spurring Aviv's interest in making a movie about it. The project was assigned to producer Gavin Polone while the screenplay was written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris. In February 2006, it was reported that Dominic Purcell and Orlando Jones had joined Primeval with Michael Katleman set to make his directorial debut. Purcell had been wanting to do a studio film, but when his agent told him about Primeval Purcell was initially uninterested as he felt the description sounded too much like Anaconda, but Purcell changed his mind upon reading the script and was intrigued by the true story aspects of the script as well as themes touching upon the Rwandan genocide. Purcell filmed the movie during hiatus between the first and second seasons of Prison Break.

Effects

Initially the film was set to recreate the crocodile as a practical effect using an animatronic crocodile made for the production, however, once the crew brought the prop to Africa and placed it in the water, they felt it didn't look very convincing or scary and made the last minute decision to rely fully on CGI to create the crocodile.

Filming

While the movie is set in Burundi, the actual filming was done in South Africa in the cities of Cape Town and Durban. Katleman cited Jaws as a major influence on how he decided to shoot the film and even experimented with some shots from the crocodiles point-of-view he called "Gustave-vision" that were ultimately excised from the film as it never met his satisfaction. During shooting, Jones improvised many of his character's dialogue.

Release

The film was released on January 12, 2007. Director Michael Katleman disagreed with Disney's decision to market the crocodile as if it were a serial killer and felt that the film would've played better with audiences if the marketing had leaned more in the direction of a monster movie.

Home media

The film was released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment (under the Hollywood Pictures Home Entertainment banner) on June 12, 2007 on DVD and Blu-ray.

Reception

Box office

Primeval grossed $10,597,734 in the United States with an additional $4,693,543 in other territories for a total of $15,291,277 worldwide.

During its domestic theatrical run, Primeval was shown in theaters for 354 days, equivalent to 50 weeks. At its peak, the film was screened in 2,444 theaters during the weeks of January 12–18, 2007 and January 19–25, 2007. In its opening week, the film made $7,716,473 across 2,444 theaters, achieving a per-theater average of $3,157.

Internationally, the film grossed $867,343 in Mexico, where it reached its peak presence in 221 theaters and ran for 36 weeks. In Malaysia, it earned $825,250, with a peak presence in 5 theaters and a run time of 42 weeks. In Thailand, the film grossed $609,611, with a peak presence in 56 theaters and a run time of 38 weeks.

Critical reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Primeval received an approval rating of 21% based on 57 reviews, and an average rating of 3.46/10. Its consensus reads, "Primeval is a low-quality horror film, which due to the inane political messages does not even qualify as campy fun." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 35 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "Generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on an A+ to F scale.

Luke Y. Thompson of The Village Voice gave the film a negative review, writing, "With a little camp this could have been fun, but director Michael Katleman doesn't play it that way, and even Jürgen Prochnow's crazed Ahab wannabe is unfortunately understated." Peter Hartlaub from The San Francisco Chronicle stated that the film "almost works as an intentionally stupid action movie", but noted "for every guilty pleasure moment, a failed attempt to inject importance to the plot will shock you back into having a bad time again." A.O. Scott of The New York Times criticized the film's editing, script, and characters. Jon Condit from Dread Central awarded the film a score of 1/5, calling it "a really poor man's Blood Diamond that just happens to also feature an enormous man-eating crocodile". Condit panned the film's thin characterizations, misleading marketing, and called Purcell "a major miscasting problem". Andrew Smith from Popcorn Pictures rated the film a score of 2/10, writing "The film doesn't have a clue what it wants to be and switches frequently from generic monster-on-the-loose flick to the dramatic 'let's make a statement on Africa' thriller it clearly has designs on being. Neither works very well."

In his review for The Globe and Mail, Jason Anderson gave the film a low rating of 1.5/5. Describing the film as an "exploitation-movie variation on Blood Diamond," he criticized it for its misguided attempt to go beyond a simple killer-crocodile premise and highlights the film's problematic anthropomorphization of the crocodile as "the most prolific serial killer in history," noting that the filmmakers seem embarrassed by their endeavor. Anderson notes that he finds the film lacking in the fun and intensity of similar creature features and portrays it as "grim, dull, and ugly." The film also received criticism from Naturalist Patrice Faye, who stated that the film was "an insult to purists and herpetologists but, above all, an insult to Burundi. It shows the country in a bad light, and the people of Burundi are made out to be savages, barbarians, thieves, and murderers".