Better than Jurassic World
Summary
Primitive War delivers exactly what I wanted from it – gruesome kills, plenty of action and gore feeling more like a horror movie than a family friendly adventure. This is definitely the best dinosaur movie of the year.
Plot: Vietnam. 1968. A recon unit known as Vulture Squad is sent to an isolated jungle valley to uncover the fate of a missing Green Beret platoon. They soon discover they are not alone.
Review: I’ve been looking forward to seeing Primitive War for some time as it promised some R-rated dinosaur action which the Jurassic franchise has been sorely lacking. I’m pleased to say that this delivers and is easily the best dinosaur movie released this year.
Where Jurassic World: Rebirth was bland, Primitive War makes the dinos scary and this movie doesn’t skimp on gore either. Insides are torn out, lots of blood is spilled and there is a pervading sense of threat. There are dinosaurs, Viet Cong and Russians all around, so our group of soldiers rarely get any downtime as they try to escape this nightmare.
The story is set during the Vietnam War and a group of green berets go missing, so our ragtag team are sent in to find out what happened to them. They soon discover that there is a mad Russian scientist who has brought dinosaurs back through some ridiculous means that doesn’t really matter. Let’s face it, if you’re going to watch this movie you are looking for lots of dino related kills and Primitive War does exactly that.
It’s well paced and rarely goes long without either a dinosaur attack or shoot-out. There are also plentiful explosions and I found I almost cared for some of the characters too. They were certainly better than that godawful family from Rebirth and when someone is killed you actually feel it and so do the team.
Ryan Kwanten plays our lead Ryan Baker who isn’t especially likeable, but he feels like a believable and tough soldier who wants to get his men home safe. Jeremy Piven plays the self-serving Colonel who says “Classified” a lot but I was hoping he would have gotten eaten at some point. There’s always a sequel…
There isn’t a sense of wonder here with a catchy John Williams tune; in Primitive War the dinosaurs are monsters that want to eat you so this goes for horror and action vibes rather than family friendly.
In terms of flaws, the dialogue isn’t anything special and I did find it went on a little too long, but it is only 2 hours and I was also exhausted after a crap work day. I thought the visual effects were mostly effective; they aren’t quite up there with Jurassic Park but for the budget they’re impressive.
Overall, Primitive War is better than any of the Jurassic World movies (Jurassic Park 1 is still king) with some gruesome kills and makes dinosaurs scary rather than kid friendly. There are shoot-outs and explosions too making this action packed and one I’ll be picking up when it hits Blu-ray.