Primitive War is the Fortunate Son of Jurassic Park and Apocalypse Now.
There’s high concept and there’s coming up with concepts while high, and Primitive War comfortably encompasses both. Luke Sparke’s modestly budgeted adaptation of Ethan Pettus’ 2017 novel treats the patently ludicrous mash-up with the seriousness and grit it needs to succeed on the screen.
In 1968, during the Vietnam War, a Green Beret platoon is lost in a remote jungle valley their commander, Colonel Jericho (Jeremy Piven), calls in Vulture Squad, a long range reconnaissance patrol team consisting of team leader Sergeant First Class Ryan Baker (Ryan Kwanten), second-in-command Sergeant Xavier Wise (Adolphus Waylee), rookie radio operator Leon Verne (Carlos Sanson), former Air Cavalry soldiers Eli Taylor (Nick Wechsler) and Charlie Miller (Albert Mwangi), and snipers Gerald Keyes (Anthony Ingruber) and Logan Stovall (Aaron Glenane), to find the missing Green Berets. But when the Vultures are airdropped into the valley, they quickly find themselves under attack from ferocious feathered creatures as well as under threat from a rival Soviet team called the Dogs of War.
The Vulture Squad, led by Kwanten’s stoic Sergeant Baker, aren’t the polished heroes of a recruitment poster; they are ragged, weary, and immediately convincing as men who have already seen too much even before the first claw appears. Kwanten provides a steady, physical centre to the chaos, while Nick Wechsler as Eli Taylor adds a necessary touch of empathy to a unit otherwise defined by survivalist cynicism. Jeremy Piven, appearing as the over-the-top Colonel Jericho, leans into the military-industrial madness of the piece, his performance operating on a frequency of pure, snarling authority.
The arrival of Tricia Helfer as Sofia Wagner, a Soviet palaeontologist discovered amidst the jungle, is a welcome addition even if her role is primarily there to serve as the expedition’s exposition, identifying each new predator as the narratives shifts from war movie to sci-fi nightmare. A genre veteran, Helfer handles the heavy exposition regarding particle colliders and wormholes with deceptive ease, and skill that keeps Primitive War from drifting into parody. It is a testament to the production design that the transition from historical warfare to prehistoric horror feels entirely organic, the jungle locations of Queensland utilised to maximise the sense of claustrophobia, ensuring that the threat remains pressing even when the visual effects occasionally – but infrequently – falter.
It may have been made for a fraction of the budget of the recent Jurassic World: Rebirth, but it packs almost as much of a punch; while Rebirth is undoubtedly more polished, in terms of thrilling dinosaur-fuelled mayhem, it’s a much closer run thing. Primitive War doesn’t treat the dinosaurs as mere background noise or simple monsters, instead presenting them as apex predators with their own logic, particularly in a standout sequence involving a Quetzalcoatlus that is as gruesome as anything found in contemporary horror. It’s to Primitive War’s credit that it fully embraces current paleontological thinking around the appearance of dinosaurs, adding in the feathers and other findings that other more reptile-focused franchises favour. The sound design is on point too, with the mechanical roar of gunfire and the prehistoric shrieks of the valley creating a dense, overwhelming atmosphere that again helps to mitigate the limitations of the production’s resources.
What it does share with its wealthier Jurassic cousins is an expansive runtime. Dinosaurs in the Vietnam Jungle feels tailor-made for a lean, mean 90-minute masterpiece and stretching it out over two hours over-strains both the purse strings and the potential of the story.
Primitive War understands its own audacity, and knows the only way to back up that bravado is to play it completely straight. By determinedly avoiding the urge to play the concept for laughs, Primitive War manages to be both a sincere – if slightly superficial – homage to 1960s war movie tropes and 1950s creature features.
