This week’s Sunday Morning (OK, Monday morning) Sketch Cinema’s gem is Primeval, the tale of a giant killer crocodile and a group of people attempting to capture it.

Primeval is loosely based on the true story of Gustave, a giant crocodile in Africa that is supposedly responsible for hundreds of deaths. This particular tale opens with a British woman who is investigating an uncovered mass grave and is killed by the croc, but the story ultimately revolves around a group of journalists who are sent to catch the beast, and is a primarily fictionalized account with only a few real facts thrown in now and again. In this story, a disgraced journalist named Tim (Dominic Purcell), his cameraman (Orlando Jones), and an animal reporter looking to make her mark with a “real” story (Brooke Langton). Along the way they pick up a team that includes an animal expert and a guide, and they set out to capture the gigantic crocodile.

Primeval actually isn’t what I’d consider a “bad” movie. It is well acted, shot on location, and the storyline itself isn’t too terrible. I would, however, say it is a “boring” movie. The film just starts out slow, and in its attempts to keep viewers on edge it never really hits the high-tension level one would expect from a horror movie. It does have its moments throughout (the scene when Orlando Jones is pursued by Gustave is well done, and Mr. Jones has some of the best lines in the movie), but overall just never really reaches a level of true fear.

Part of the problem, actually, is that the story is based upon a real monster. Gustave really did (and supposedly still does) live in Africa, and at least 300 deaths have been attributed to him. This is not a documentary, though, so they’re not really trying to follow the tale of the crocodile too closely, but they also don’t want to stray too far. However, to be respectful to the reality behind the subject matter, they also don’t deal a whole lot with the animal itself. It shows up, kills and eats and acts all scary, but they never have any big climactic blowout like in Jaws or any other giant killer animal movie. Because Gustave (in real life) wasn’t killed by a group of journalists, and in fact supposedly is still prowling African waters to this day, they really can’t do much with the story outside of have the crocodile eat people and be big and scary.

To add to the movie, they invent a local warlord who calls himself “Little Gustave”, and who terrorizes the local populace and also acts as another enemy in the film. He and his men, throughout the film, are also trying to kill our intrepid band of heroes. This in a way splits the movie into two separate stories: the leads vs. the croc and then the leads vs. the warlord and his men. The two tracks overlap repeatedly, but since we’re now dealing with lots of different threads nothing ever comes together as a whole.

Again, nothing is really bad about the movie at all. It’s just slow and boring, there’s no attachment to the characters that would make you care when they get killed, and you never get any real big resolution (like Jaws) because they want to protect the integrity of the true facts involved. It’s almost like the makers didn’t know what they wanted the movie to really be. It’s not a documentary, so we don’t have any real education value concerning Gustave. It’s not a horror movie, because they try to stick with as much truth as possible, and the parts with Little Gustave and his army just feel tacked on in an attempt to add to the tension.

So if you want a real Gustave story, go find one of the PBS specials. If you want man vs. animal, stick with a certain great white shark.

Sketch Cinema quote(s) of the week:

Steve (Orlando Jones): “The crocodile is like OJ Simpson. He messed up when he killed that white woman.”

Steve (to an African boy who wants to come to the USA): “If I have to shove you up my ass to get you through customs, I am taking you to America.”

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