PRIMITIVE WAR (2025)

4 stars

Signature Entertainment. UK and Irish cinemas. 28th November

PRIMITIVE WAR is a B movie thriller with A movie ambitions – and for the most part pulls it off, giving the latest JURASSIC outing a run for it’s money in the action stakes (and for a fraction of that blockbuster’s budget).

Vietnam 1968: Vulture Squad, lead by Sergeant Ryan Baker (Ryan Kwanten), are a renegade, seven man unit that takes on missions that seem impossible. They get their latest orders from Colonel Jericho (Jeremy Piven, who sports a somewhat distracting accent for some reason). They are to be dropped into a remote valley in the jungle to try and locate some Green Beret’s that have gone missing. Other than that, everything else is classified.

Back at base camp we get a chance to get to know the various soldiers (though later in proceedings they are a bit interchangeable). They are flown into their destination at night – they soon find large tracks of an indeterminate animal, hear strange noises and also movement in the undergrowth. It isn’t long before mass gunfire ensues when the squad realises they are in a valley of dinosaurs which attack… luckily for them they appear to have an endless supply of ammunition, which come in handy as things progress!

When Baker and newbie Leon (Carlos Sanson Jr.) are separated from the others, they have a run-in with a T. Rex (not recommended) and are rescued by Russian scientist Sofia (Tricia Helfer) who reveals that the no good Russkies have been experimenting with a collider and opened a wormhole to the past – hence the numerous prehistoric beasties wandering about!

Director Luke Sparke, always looks to make ambitious films, like his previous outings OCCUPATION (2018) and OCCUPATION: RAINFALL (2020) and once again, not content with just helming he also wrote the script, based on the self published novel by Ethan Pertus. Plus, as he didn’t have enough to do, he was editor, production designer and VFX supervisor. This Aussie production was shot on the Gold Coast, Queensland. The film makes the most of its budget and the CGI fx work, showing numerous dino’s, is realistically rendered with well staged and exciting encounters between man and monsters. Kwanten is good as the no nonsense head of the squad. Sparke keeps things rattling along with the dino destruction pretty much never letting up and doesn’t skimp on the gore when various characters become monster munch.

Steve Kirkham