Vietnam, 1968. Vulture Squad, a patrol group seeking a missing Green Beret unit, learn that their comrades were killed not by enemy action but by dinosaurs. Russian scientist Sofia (Tricia Helfer) rescues Sergeant Baker (Ryan Kwanten) from a T-Rex and tells him a mad general has opened a wormhole to prehistory and unleashed monsters.
DC Comics once published a series called The War That Time Forgot, notable for weak writing and terrific art — and, most of all, for great cover images of World War II GIs battling dinosaurs. Primitive War is set during the Vietnam War but otherwise offers the same genre mash-up and goes all out to deliver the gruesome dino-action which recent Jurassic World films have shied away from.
The plot, from a novel by Ethan Pettus, is basic. Somewhere in Southeast Asia, an unhinged Soviet has tested a ‘collider’ deemed too dangerous to play with in Russia… and dinosaurs have charged through a time warp. A US platoon are sent to investigate the area and find themselves chased, chewed and stomped on by prehistoric monsters when they’re not being shot at or stabbed by the regular enemy. Ryan Kwanten does Sgt Rock duty as the battered-hero-type too used to being betrayed by his superiors to raise an eyebrow when a weaselly officer (Entourage‘s Jeremy Piven) tosses him to the Deinonychosaurs. Tricia Helfer affects an accent as a sweaty boffin useful for palaeontology footnotes — she knows the Latin names of the feathery bastards who eat people. There are a few nice character beats: a soldier with acute PTSD calms down in the lost world because giant monsters aren’t scarier than the voices in his head; a justifiably angry Vietnamese woman who isn’t happy with Russia and America using her homeland for their proxy fights and then adding extinct animals to an already dangerous-enough situation.
Australian director Luke Sparke, who has an effects background, made this on a fairly modest budget and the odd CGI shot looks wonky. But, as the film progresses, its dino-attacks become more impressive — and an extravagant finale throws in tanks, helicopters, explosions, and a raptor stampede.
An unashamed exploitation movie with teeth, this has all the dinosaur devilry and gung-ho soldiering you could want. There’s even a sweet Tyrannosaur love story in the mix.