By Su-Kim Lee

Boring, misleading, uninteresting, dull … did I mention boring? PRIMEVAL is the movie based on the true-life killer croc nicknamed Gustave, who has allegedly eaten/dismembered/horribly disfigured hundreds of people in war-torn Burundi, South Africa. 

Yeah, the croc’s real — it’s eaten a significant number of people, but the estimates of his rapacity and size are fairly unbelievable. If you take it as read, the beastie has gorged itself on more than 300 people and is anywhere between 25 and 30 feet long — that’s bigger than the shark from JAWS, and approaching the length of a killer whale. With regard to the gore factor, the attacks in this movie are paced so fast that even with the power of DVD and slowing the action down to 1/16th, it’s pretty much impossible to tell what is going on.

There’s a fascinating diatribe at National Geographic about the hunt for Gustave and how he reappeared in April 2007. Patrice Faye, the French environmentalist upon whom the character Mathew Collins (Gideon Emery) may be based, has been pursuing Gustave for years, and even went so far as to rig a gigantic steel cage trap — baited with everything from macerated chickens to live goats and pigs — alas, to no avail.

Anyway, back to the movie. PRIMEVAL’s marketing strategy focused on the croc and blood. But, what you’re actually left with with is a big, annoying dose of politically-correct outrage at how innocent folk are caught in the crossfire between the battling Hutu and Tutsi factions. Come on people, this is supposed to be a monster movie, à la ALLIGATOR or even MANEATER (as lame as that sounds)! If I wanted a political message about how the Belgians screwed up bits of Africa, I’d watch HOTEL RWANDA. PRIMEVAL’s characters are lifeless, the script is horribly paced, and will somebody please tell me why the local kid jumps into the cage? Oh, I almost forgot, did Orlando Jones really need a paycheck this badly?

The outcome? Gustave massacres the bad guys and tries his level best to devour a Range Rover; the two most attractive main characters barely survive, the war goes on, the locals are no better or worse off and the Big G lives to bite another day.

Commentary on the DVD and the “making of” featurette are quite in-depth, and I actually felt sorry for the filmmakers because they speak so passionately about this project. Research into making the CGI Gustave as real as possible was extensive — and I must admit that for a wackily outsized creature, they got the look down pat. The only problem is, they made him move too fast. Maybe they were going for shock value, but in a movie, if you can’t see the action, you can’t react to it