"Half the fun of B-movies with A-budgets is stupid characters bumbling through fantastical scenarios en route to certain doom. Roberts' Instagram-infographic-as-science approach helps establish his clockwork concept, in which a pet chimpanzee goes bananas on its teenage owners. The film is rife with tongue-in-cheek thrills and violent charms, as though that one scene in Nope were turned into its own feature."
"The idea is simple at the outset: what if a slasher/home invasion thriller starred an ape gone wild? An in-medias-res prologue teases ludicrous outcomes, as a happy-go-lucky ape caretaker (Rob Delaney) approaches Ben (Miguel Torres Umba) - a pet chimp clad in human smart casuals - in his private enclosure, and has his face viciously peeled from his bones. Between Ben's practical costuming, and all the visceral blood and muscle, this intro promises a wonderfully tactile creature feature, on which it largely delivers."
"College-aged Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) flies home to O'ahu with her best friend Hannah (Jessica Alexander) and their overbearing, free-spirited acquaintance Kate (Victoria Wyant). Their plane ride involves banal conversations, which vaguely reference dramatic backstories that don't amount to much. Lucy's mother, a primatologist, has passed away, and Lucy hasn't been back to Hawaii to see her younger sister Erin (Gia Hunter) or their Deaf author father Adam (Troy Kotsur) in some time."
Primate opens with a graphic prologue showing a pet chimp violently mauling its caretaker, establishing a tactile creature-feature premise. The film uses infographic-style exposition to explain the ape's behavior and leans into tongue-in-cheek thrills and visceral effects. After the prologue it flashes back to follow college-aged Lucy returning to O'ahu with friends and reconnecting with her younger sister and Deaf father. Character scenes include banal dialogue and vaguely sketched backstories that slow pacing. The narrative alternates between violent charms and heavy imagery but suffers from haphazard assembly and clashing tones that weaken overall cohesion.
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