Is "Primitive War" The Best non-Jurassic Park dinosaur movie EVER?

by Juan-Pablo Pina

While the audience reception for Jurassic World: Rebirth (51% on Rotten Tomatoes, 6/10 on IMDB.com) may make it look like dinosaurs are gone from the silver screen for good, a new contender in the field of dinosaur cinema has stepped up. Introducing Primitive War (2025), an indie film directed by the Australian Luke Sparke and based on the exceedingly killer 2017 book of the same name by Ethan Pettus. But is the new kid on the block on par with those that have come before, or is it the final nail in the coffin that wipes out dinosaur cinema?

*Spoilers Ahead*

Part I. Storytelling

The movie, set in 1968 during the infamous Vietnam War, starts out with what may be the most chilling start to a dinosaur film since the cold open with the Tyrannosaurus and Mosasaurus in “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” (2018). The last two survivors of a team of green berets are stalked by giant feathered animals (later revealed to be the grizzly-sized raptor dinosaur Utahraptor) in the middle of a nighttime storm in the jungle. The high-tense scene is quickly-paced and makes no effort to shirk the fact that this is a movie about war, dinosaurs and lots of blood.

Soon after, the film kicks off by introducing us to a military base (with the classic song “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival playing in the background) as well as the main characters locked in battle with the Viet Cong: a special operations team known as the “Vulture Squad” comprised of Charlie Miller (played by Albert Mwangi), Eli Taylor (played by Nick Wechsler), Gerald Keys (played by Anthony Ingruber), Leon Verne (played by Carlos Sanson), Logan Stovall (played by Aaron Glenane) and Sergeant Ryan Baker (played by Ryan Kwatent).

Something the film does brilliantly is its use of environmental storytelling, letting the world the characters are in speak to the audience and sometimes even fool them so that the actors don’t have to convey the mood alone. The abandoned Russian Compound at night, as well as the mud-soaked Viet Cong village or the elephant graveyard/Tyrannosaurus nest all give off an ominous sense while the sunlight jungle acts as a way to put the audience at ease (which can sometimes be in order to surprise viewers with a set of claws and teeth).

The dialogue with the characters is also brilliant. General Amadeus Jericho (played by Jeremy Piven) is a huge jerk and he knows it and lives it while Stovall, a character who helps convey themes of mental health and trauma, is a figure who lives the results of what taking so many lives through a scope can do to a man given enough time. Meanwhile, the crazed and dread-soaked lines and movements of the Russian paleontologist Sophia Wagner (played by Tricia Helfer) show a woman broken by so much death as well as the helplessness one can feel when beholden to barbaric acts of savagery and avarice. And something that I found particularly gut-wrenching and spectacular is how well the writers wielded the tool of the character Gerald Keys.

Early on, Keys is shown comforting Stovall after the attack on the Viet Cong POW (prisoner of war) camp leaves Stovall a little more traumatized after killing, making the audience and the characters care for Keys as he cares for his teammates. Afterwards, he is shown interacting with Leon in what can be described as “young men talk”, establishing/strengthening the connection to not only more characters but also the audience. And even though he gets viciously mauled by a Utahraptor around the halfway point in the film (though he does stab it in the eye with a knife, giving the Utahraptor the name “Cyclops”), the fact that the team tried to save him leaves the audience with a sense of tension since we find out that, like Komodo dragons, the Utahraptor pack can track their prey via the scent trail.

However, his salvation is also a plot device that gets Sophia to not only trust the Vulture Squad but also see them as good men with good hearts rather than the mindless American war dogs she first made them out to be. And even after his heroic sacrifice (he sets off a grenade on himself in both an act of suicide and an attempt to kill the Utahraptor pack so his friends will be safe), his absence leaves his friend, Stovall, an emotional mess, which has later consequences for Stovall’s mental health (he takes his own life via a shot to the head so the team could escape a pack of ravenous Deinonychus).

However, while a huge attracting factor of the film is its R-rated nature (a refreshing take in the field of dinosaur cinema where PG-13 films don’t “earn” their rating) and the fact that its a Vietnam War film, there is one other major attraction: dinosaurs. And as someone who has seen all the Jurassic… films as well as various documentaries, I can tell you that these are some of the best dinosaurs I have ever seen…

Part II. Creatures

For 150 million years, planet Earth was ruled by an awe-inspiring group of special reptiles: dinosaurs. Over the course of their reign, they also shared then planet with many long-gone creatures like strange crocodile-relatives and flying and marine reptiles. And Primitive War serves some of freshest, most scientifically-accurate and nastiest depictions of prehistoric life ever seen.

For one, all the appropriate animals (Deinonychus, the juvenile Tyrannosaurus, Quetzalcoatlus, Utahraptor and Velociraptor) are covered in beautifully-colored feathers (or, in the case of Quetzalcoatlus, pycnofibres). Even the male Tyrannosaurus, though largely “naked”, is crowned with a few spines and hair-like feathers to distinguish him from his mate (a surprising difference from the novel which depicts both Tyrannosaurus as being covered in feathers and even having something akin to a lion’s mane). What’s more, while the female Tyrannosaurus sports a pale coloring with dark spots almost like a leopard, her mate is adorned with a mesmerizing pattern of black, brown, orange and white.

Another brilliant example of keeping it accurate is the Spinosaurus. While Ethan Pettus’s novel depicts a feeding frenzy of the ancient crocodile-relative Kaprosuchus, the film replaced the crocodile horde with a colossal pair of scientifically-accurate Spinosaurus (according to Ethan Pettus, due to budgetary constraints as well as the star power Spinosaurus has over Kaprosuchus). And while Jurassic World: Rebirth depicts the Spinosaurus as a stocky oceanic pack-hunter that swam alongside Mosasaurus, Primitive War gives us a truly amphibious Spinosaurus with powerful claws and legs that work just as well on land as they do in the water.

The animals even sound like they would’ve. Rather than belting out elephant-like screams, the Tyrannosaurus coo like birds or bellow/snarl like alligators (this also goes for the other large carnivores in the film, those being the Spinosaurus and the Suchomimus). Meanwhile, the Utahraptor let out spine-chilling barks and chirps like those of birds (mainly the Kori Bustard as well as the Eurasian bittern) as well as hisses like alligators or Komodo dragons. The Quetzalcoatlus, meanwhile, let out deep honks that sound almost like freight trains, with the actual noises being made by lowering the pitch and slowing down the clucks of a chicken. But probably the best part of the animals is the way they act.

Rather than being solitary monsters, the Tyrannosaurus are intelligent carnivores who live in mated pairs and care deeply for each other and their young. The Quetzalcoatlus, meanwhile, are gregarious nomads who roam in flocks and hunt on the ground using their spear-like beaks or long, spiked tongues (which act like revolting harpoons). And while it can be said that the Deinonychus and Velociraptor packs “swarming” their prey no matter how many get gunned down is a stretch too far, it does its job in demonstrating how dangerous the setting is. But easily the best behaviors demonstrated by the animals comes in the form of the Utahraptor.

Like in the novel, the Utahraptor are highly intelligent and ferocious (probably a bit more so than their real-life counterparts would’ve been). They let out calls to “herd” their prey into kill zones or will stay quite and still while hiding in the underbrush, literally letting their prey bump into them (it happens twice). But when they attack, they not only act like actual Utahraptor would’ve (biting smaller prey’s head and/or slicing their bellies open and using their signature killing claw), but they also try and make the kill quiet. In fact, when the Utahraptor “Cyclops” (named for the fact that he only has one eye due to a knife) attacks Keys, he covers Keys’ mouth in an attempt to silence him (his cover being blown when he gets stabbed, causing him to cry out in pain).

All in all, the prehistoric animals in Primitive War are brutal, beautiful and badass. But even when combined with the amazing storytelling prowess, what about all the other elements of a film like this such as music, cinematography and CGI?

Part III. Production

An interesting fact about Primitive War is that this is what some might call a “small film” (despite its runtime of 2 hours and 15 minutes). Not necessarily because of its contents or length, but instead due to its origin.

Rather than be the progeny of a big studio like Legendary Pictures, WarnerBros or Universal Pictures, Primitive War was produced by Sparke Films and Fathom Entertainment. And rather than have a budget like that of Jurassic World: Rebirth ($180 million, $330 million including marketing), Primitive War sports a fancy budget of only $7 million. And, unfortunately, it had a fair amount of knockon effects afterwards.

While the score, composed by Frederik Wiedmann (The Dragon Prince, Tremors: Shrieker Island), is absolutely brilliant and even stands out in the film, the CGI can’t say the same. The Tyrannosaurus have bizarrely stiff tail-ends and the few (living, because we do see a large kill site that acts as the Tyrannosaurus nest) Asian elephants look really weird. What’s more, the Velociraptor cave attack is so dark that the video becomes horribly grainy like a phone camera, quickly sucking you out of the experience. Some of the blood splashes from gunshots or machetes also look like they just so happen to appear where the machete or bullet hits rather than looking like it came from the bullet. However, the practical effects like the set design and props are incredibly well done, with the Russian compound being just as foreboding as promised and the military outpost and Viet Cong villages looking and feeling muddy and violent.

But even though the bad special effects can be chalked up to the small budget and the fact that the film was made in a little over two and a half years (the rights for a Primitive War adaptation were only obtained by Fathom Entertainment in February of 2022), the indie nature of the project has had one more and even more drastic effect on the film: performance.

Rather than getting the long theatrical run of most films which let it gain money overtime with sufficient time for the promotion to build anticipation, the first trailer for the film released on July 25th of 2025, leaving only 27 days between the trailer (which also kicked off a big marketing spree on social media) and the release of the movie (August 21st). What’s more, the film was slated to have limited showtimes for only five days, from August 21st to August 26th. However, recent news suggests that not only has its spontaneous fame and overperformance (earning $504 million according to online rumors, meaning it earned 72 times its own budget) forced theatres to continue to air the movie in Australia and America for an extra week, but even make plans for more airings in places like Canada and the UK.

Part IV. Conclusion

So what really is there that Primitive War offers that other and bigger films don’t? Well, for one, the dinosaurs are well-and-truly dangerous, feeling just as deadly and worthy-of-caution as any real-life animals or the dinosaurs in the original Jurassic Park. Another incredibly worthwhile fact is that the prehistoric animals are all scientifically-accurate, sporting feathers and bizarre features just like the real animals. As for the humans, the storytelling is genius and the acting is truly astounding, especially when paired with set design and score.

In the end, Primitive War just won’t be for everyone, even for the dinosaur fans. Its shameless gore and patchy nature reveals itself often, and it can sometimes stick out like a sore thumb. But, it makes up for it with its amazing depiction of prehistoric life, its heart and its shameless style. In my own opinion (i.e, the author of this article), it earns itself a solid 8.5/10, only brought down by a few bad effects and an ending that you just have to see to believe (which also sort of ruins the moment). Plus, going out to support this movie also means that other people will be encouraged to make their own dinosaur films, and who doesn’t want more dinosaur movies!