MOVIE: Primal

STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Famke Janssen, Kevin Durand, LaMonica Garett, Michael Imperioli, Jeremy Nazario, Drake Shannon, Braulio Castillo Jr.

RELEASE DATE: November 8th, 2019

WHERE TO WATCH: VOD (Hulu, Amazon Prime, Vudu, Apple TV)

By Justin Pomerville (2 Broke Geeks)

Primal was a straight to DVD release in November of 2019 that stars Nic Cage, Famke Janssen (of “X-Men” fame), and Kevin Durand (who has been in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” as The Blob). This film came as part of a group of other straight to DVD releases from Cage after Color Out Of Space went to theaters. Most of the time, straight to DVD films are usually considered not to have the budget for a theater release and/or just not being strong enough contenders for theaters that they just skip right to mass production. Primal is one of those films that I found underwhelming and overall cheap in terms of production, fitting that mold.

The plot of Primal is this; big-game hunter Frank Walsh (played by Cage) catches a rare white jaguar in the Brazilian rainforest, loads it on a container ship to illegally bring it back to the states and sell it to a zoo, in hence to make a fortune. On that same ship, US Marshals are bringing in notorious political assassin and ex-special forces operative, Richard Loffer (played by Durand). When Loffer breaks out and lets loose Walsh’s animals, it’s up to Walsh and the US Marshals to get everything back under control before Loffer kills everybody.

This film is pretty bad. 90% of the animals are CGI and they look like they were made with early 2001 graphics. More so, he main problems are the acting and writing in this film. Characters make horrible choices. There’s a scene where everyone who is working on the boat is locked in one room and is learning about Loffer’s escape, and the engineers have to leave to keep the ship running. In the midst of that, Loffer shows up in the engine room and asks the engineers about how to power the boat. The engineers just tell him how to even-though, they should know he’s Loffer as he was not with the rest of the crew and marshals. There is also one child actor who’s skill is laughable. Everything he does is incredibly flat and has no emotion. There is even a moment where Loffer goes to grab the kid’s head to hold him hostage, and the kid visibly leans over for Loffer to predictably grab it. The only (sort-of) saving grace of this film is the overacting of both Cage and Durand. Their fight scenes are extremely comical, especially Cage’s reaction to a single punch or kick. Because of their acting, this film is in the upper section of “Terrible” on the Nic Gauge.