Primeval

USA, 2007. Directed by Michael Katleman. Dominic Purcell, Brooke Langton, Orlando Jones, Jürgen Prochnow, Gideon Emery, Gabriel Malema.

Supposedly a horror film about an extra large killer crocodile, Primeval is actually a bit of a joke – in fact they should have called it What’s Up, Croc? Set in Burundi amidst the background of civil war, a small news team investigates the aforementioned killer croc which has become news in the Western world because it’s recently gobbled up a white woman. The team are a motley group of caricatures we’ve all seen before: a hunky male reporter (Purcell), who initially regards the expedition as a waste of his time; a foxy female reporter (Langton) who insists they take it seriously; a wisecracking black cameraman (Jones), best buddy of Purcell; a Steve Irwin-type crocodile expert cum media pundit (Emery); a grizzled old crocodile hunter with a chip on his shoulder (Jürgen Prochnow no less); and a black youth (Malema) who tags along with them because he wants them to take him back to the States when they leave. But having set up this scenario the film then takes a different direction entirely and becomes an action thriller about the Burundi civil war and its genocide. From this point on the poor old croc struggles to get his fair share of screen time. Even this wouldn’t be such a disaster if it had been done well, but the script is very heavy-handed and discussions amongst the team about the political situation are very po-faced and unconvincing. There seems to be an attempt to use the crocodile as some sort of allegory, by giving him the same name as the dreaded local war lord, Gustave. Some of the action sequences are effective enough, although they would have been well advised to follow the rule of such films that the less you see of the monster the more effective the threat. The whole thing has a sort of 1970s feel to it. Fans of this genre will be pleased to note it has the obligatory cute animal – in this case a dog – which enables a scene where our heroes have to return to the danger zone to rescue it.