Primal (feat. Nicolas Cage)

Released in 2019, this movie spent over twenty years in production hell before getting made, and it shows. This is a 90s movie all the way, with a slight upgrade to its CGI effects, which are still bad. Cage plays Frank Walsh, an exotic big-game hunter in the jungles of Brazil. As you might expect, he's not a great dude, greedy and arrogant. But that's fine. He's the protagonist of the film. You can tell because he's in the first scene, and played by the only famous person in the cast. Either way, Cage plays the hero in almost all of his movies.

After Walsh catches a legendary white jaguar, he takes a boat out of the jungle, which as a last minute surprise, is also transporting a criminally insane terrorist assassin named Richard Loffler. So we have Loffler plus jungle animals, plus the white jaguar who we don't need to worry about anymore, even though she's a legendary man eater. Still the US Marshals on board are easily outmatched. So the premise is pretty good, like Con Air but darker and more exciting.

And in this type of situation, you might expect a lot of people to die, like in most thrillers. But that doesn't happen. So the thriller part doesn't work. What about the action? The action is pretty bad all around, except for one scene with Cage, who severely out-performs everyone else in the cast, which by the way, includes only one woman.

With the bechdel test, I am especially forgiving of Nick Cage films, because if he's going to be in a movie, it might as well be mostly about him. But in Primal, any of the characters could have been female. None of them had to be male, except for the hottie who doesn't like Walsh, because he's not a good man. This hottie is Famke Janssen, playing Dr. Ellen Taylor. Some military doctor, it's her job to ensure the health and safety of their prisoner on board. And she doesn't look like a military doctor, always withe her hair in this sultry side braid.

So was there anything good about this movie? The thrill is there if you're really desperate for it. And if you really love 90s action movies, and wish they were still being made, this is the film for you. Otherwise, you should continue not caring about it.

  1. Raising Arizona
  2. Leaving Las Vegas
  3. Red Rock West
  4. Adaptation
  5. Pig
  6. Birdy
  7. Wild at Heart
  8. Joe
  9. National Treasure
  10. Guarding Tess
  11. Snake Eyes
  12. Dog Eat Dog
  13. Color Out of Space
  14. Mom and Dad
  15. World Trade Center
  16. Peggy Sue Got Married
  17. Zandalee
  18. Prisoners of the Ghostland
  19. City of Angels
  20. Willy's Wonderland
  21. Captain Corelli's Mandolin
  22. Bangkok Dangerous
  23. Drive Angry
  24. Army of One
  25. Lord of War
  26. Gone in 60 Seconds
  27. Matchstick Men
  28. Vampire's Kiss
  29. Con Air
  30. Face/Off
  31. Trapped in Paradise
  32. The Boy in Blue
  33. Honeymoon in Vegas
  34. Amos and Andrew
  35. Moonstruck
  36. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
  37. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

  38. Primal

  39. Bringing Out the Dead
  40. The Family Man
  41. Knowing
  42. The Frozen Ground
  43. It Could Happen to You
  44. 8mm
  45. Grand Isle
  46. Looking Glass
  47. Arsenal
  48. Between Worlds
  49. Left Behind
  50. Ghost Rider
  51. Trespass
  52. The Humanity Bureau
  53. Next
  54. The Weather Man
  55. 211
  56. Fire Birds
  57. The Croods

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