Primal

MOVIE #1,726 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 06.13.24 Starting in 2020, I decided to watch & review the entire Nicolas Cage filmography in alphabetical order. This is 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 – Chapter 65. I was excited for this one after our boy’s first collab with director Nick Powell, the totally competent if not underrated Outcast from 2014, which featured Cage in a rare supporting role. This one actually got rave reviews by comparison (a 30+% RT score vs a lowly 4% lol). Primal begins in the Brazilian rainforest with Cage sporting a safari hat and smoking a stogie in the jungle. He's set a trap with dead livestock to try and capture an albino CGI jaguar. I'm not sure exactly what his plan is here but it doesn't go super well. From a design standpoint, I personally think this guy looks great…

I love that they just jumped right into it. You want to see our CGI jaguar? Well, here it fucking it is. Luckily, Cage was able to stick the cat with a drugged dart because the big boy falls asleep before he can get the best of him. Cut to him loading up the beast into a truck at a village as a flippant, beer-swigging Cage gets into it with the guy he's paid to drive the truck. This guy doesn't want to help him anymore because this “ghost cat” is a mythological creature and this whole deal is bad juju. Cage is doing his Cage thing…


So he leaves the village alone with the jag in tow as the credits roll. Hey, Michael Imperioli is in this! Nice!

He pulls up at a loading dock where a bunch of other stolen animals — mostly birds and monkeys, it seems — are being loaded onto a big cargo ship. Michael Imperioli shows up with a whole crew of government-looking officials. Apparently he's not there to bust this illegal animal trade but to transport an American prisoner. It seems like there has to better a way to get this dangerous criminal back to the States but, nope he's loaded into a cage on this big sketchy ship just like Cage’s albino big cat. What could go wrong? This bad guy (played by Kevin Durand) is a real jokester, and Durand is chewing up the scenery. Imperioli reads him his rights…


I love Michael Imperioli but it seems like he really doesn't want to be here. That's a shame.

There's a lady naval doctor on board (Famke Janssen) tasked with managing the prisoner's health because I guess this guy suffers from seizures.

In the mess hall, Cage questions the officials about who the hell this guest of honor is…


Cage — who apparently is legally trapping these cats… for zoos? — explains his whole deal to the crew. And then we learn that, because of this guy's brain issues, the U.S. Marshals can't fly him back to America and I am genuinely a little surprised they are explaining this detail.

Cage then goes down to feed his prized cats and talks to a young boy (the captain's son) about how jaguars aren't man-eaters and we get a little more expo about his line of work.

Then he goes and gets drunk with some of the ship's crew members and tells them how he's gonna get rich off this cat and retire. (I'm still not sure how he's just gonna sell this kitty to the highest bidder but whatever). He runs into the lady doctor Famke Janssen and does a Bugs Bunny impression before he realizes they have a connection. I love drunk Cage…


Right on cue, the prisoner has a medical episode. It turns out to be a very successful fake out (who saw that coming?) as he bites one of the guards hands, gets hold of the other's gun and escapes…


So now this dude is armed and missing somewhere on the ship. Terrific!

Cage gets into it with the head guard dude because he wants to feed the animals, but — yeah — the missing, armed psychopath takes precedence. They put everybody in lockdown as they go searching for the killer.

The escaped prisoner has let out some monkeys and the chef starts attacking them for some reason because they made a mess in his kitchen? Anyway, the CGI monks fuck him up real bad…


Cage and the killer have a chat on the radio about their time in the service. Then we learn that he's let out most of the animals, including poisonous snakes and the prized cat, which Cage has a tracking device on. He gets a CGI tapir back in its pen…


Meanwhile, the prisoner kills a Marshal and takes his Marshal hat. He poses as a good guy and chats up the unaware crew members Cage was boozing with earlier.

One of the snakes bites the captain and it's full chaos mode now, folks. Cage drops the R-word…


Michael Imperioli is a federal prosecutor guy but he's also in the National Guard? So he can have a machine gun. Got it, that checks out.

Cage then blow-darts a CGI monkey as the prisoner shoots out the two dudes who were steering the ship…


He then fucks up all the navigational equipment, and the ship starts to turn around. But Cage gets the jump on the bad guy and he says “cage”...


Doubtful this is the first time that Cage has said “cage” in a movie but it’s worth mentioning?

So he escapes yet again and ends up killing the head guard man and another agent. It's not looking good for our friends, people.

The villain and Cage run into each other once more and stunt coordinator turned-director Powell gets to shoot the first really fun fight sequence of the film…


Then we get a major plot twist: Imperioli kills an agent who's about to gun down the prisoner because “he needs him alive.” Seems insane that he would do that honestly but this Imperioli guy is an unknowable presence (I’m choosing that route instead of “delivering a lazy performance”). Meanwhile, the prisoner doesn’t shoot Cage because Cage is hiding the navigational charts. But he starts torturing Cage, who he puts in a cage (sorry). Then he starts shooting birds, and that gets Cage to squawk (get it? sorry AGAIN)...


They try to get the emergency lifeboat out but the killer takes the captain's son hostage. Cage is fully suspicious of Imperioli now as he notices that he didn’t take a clean shot to take out the villain. He teams up with lady doctor Famke Janssen to finally get this guy.

Posing as an agent, the bad guy radios the Coast Guard for help (not sure what his endgame was here, tbh), as lady doctor Famke Janssen plays the role of bait and immediately gets taken hostage too. Cage pops out with a bow and arrow, but Imperioli shows up and the way he says “what the fuck” here is perfection (we also get the full gist of the plot twist, and it's pretty rewarding: a stretch, sure, but not totally stupid)…


RIP Michael Imperioli, the REAL bad guy all along.

The prisoner (who is still 100% a deranged psychopath despite the plot twist) ties up lady doctor Famke Janssen and the boy, and drops a poisonous snake at their feet. Then he goes to have a final duel with Cage.

Cage hits him with a blow dart then they have a knife fight as the tranquilizer takes effect…


Cage gets him in a trap (hey, this is just like the beginning of the movie!) and feeds him to the ghost cat, as one does…


He goes back to rescue the hostages and the Coast Guard arrives. They fix another glaring plot hole, which they definitely didn't need to do, but I appreciate the effort…


The movie ends with Cage talking to a parrot and a drone shot of the ship at sea.

This movie made me think of Friday the 13th, Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan in that it's sort of a bait and switch. You think this is one kind of movie (Jason taking Manhattan, Cage in the jungle messing with big cats, etc.) but it's just a psychopath killer loose on a boat the entire time. (Although, to be fair, the ship is featured on the movie poster so maybe it was my bad for thinking that.)

I think I’m past the point of apologizing for movies like this: I had a fun time with this one. I wish they had done more with the CGI animals, as they're too much of an afterthought for long stretches, but other than that: no complaints. It’s just a really well-paced ‘turn your mind off’ action flick with big, enjoyable performances by Cage and Kevin Durand. Honestly, with a bigger budget and a bit of screw-tightening this could have been excellent.

THE VERDICT: 7 CAGES OUT OF 10 • CLICK HERE for all 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 Chapters + Ongoing Rankings.

Next time on The Year of Cage: we return to the 2020s Cageaissance with the Sion Sono-directed ‘horror-western-action’ Prisoners of the Ghostland.

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⫷ MOVIE #1,725 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,727 ⫸

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Primal is a 2019 action-thriller film directed by Nick Powell and starring Nicolas Cage, Famke Janssen, Kevin Durand, LaMonica Garrett, and Michael Imperioli. The film was shot in Puerto Rico. It was released on November 8, 2019.