Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Primitive War’ on VOD, a Ridiculous Dinosaurs-in-Vietnam Creature-Feature War Flick

By John Serba

Primitive War (now streaming on Hulu) stops just shy of putting tyrannosaurs in F14s, which is kind of a shame, really. But Australian director Luke Sparke puts them and a raft of other dinosaurs in the Vietnamese jungle during the Vietnam War, which is almost as ludicrous. How they got there is best explained by Battlestar Galactica vet Tricia Helfer donning a terrible Rooshyen ahcksent, or perhaps not. Regardless, she, Jeremy Piven and maybe Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) are the most-recognizables among the cast, which paychecks its way through a bloody ridiculous sci-fi action-thriller/pseudo-war-movie that’s better than a Syfy original, but is still pretty far removed from the relative polish of a Hollywood production. But maybe it has its charms?

PRIMITIVE WAR: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: THE NIGHT. IS IT DARK? CHECK. STORMY? CHECK. IS IT SPICED UP WITH FREQUENT LIGHTNING AND GURGLY GROWLS FROM SOMEWHERE BEHIND US? CHECK! Two American soldiers frantically radio for help from deep in the Vietnamese bush. They’ve lost some men and from the look of that uh-oh-somethin’-big’s-comin’ high angle, they’re about to be goners too. And just as the chomping noise hits we cut to – well, what do you think we should cut to? A cliche of every Vietnam War movie ever, namely, helicopters whup-whup-whupping over the jungle to the dulcet tones of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Somebody dropped a dime or three on music rights for this one, so bear down for a few more Fogerty needle drops so everyone gets their money’s worth.

Down on the ground, Col. Amadeus Jericho (Piven) – a name that’s way better than Bob or Dave Jericho – isn’t happy with what happened in that scene. Those were his men. And not just any men. They were carn-sarned Green Berets, and something tore through them like a barracuda through butter. Jericho chomps on a cigar and tosses a steak to his pet tiger in a bamboo cage as he spiels military bravado from his piehole and rounds up his crack team, the Vulture Squad, and tells them to go directly into Hell, do not pass go and all that, and pull out any survivors. No more details from Jericho: “Classified!” he bellows when anyone dares ask a question. 

Is it worth meeting the guys of the Vulture Squad? Nominally. We should probably pay our respects to those who are about to die, though: Sgt. Ryan Baker (Kwanten) leads them. Logan (Aaron Glenane), Eli (Nick Wechsler), Charlie (Albert Mwangi), Gerald (Anthony Ingruber), Leon (Carlos Sanson) and Xavier (Adolphus Waylee) prove that I can read IMDb better than I can differentiate these men as people with 1.7 character traits each. The bird drops them and something scurries through the brush. They find things: “Big-ass Liberace feathers,” says one guy. “Piles of shit. Big piles. Like guano, but they’re huge,” says another. Are those scientific terms? 

Welp, in case you’re not aware, somewhat recent research tells us that dinosaurs had feathers and many things in common with birds. Doesn’t make them any less ready to rip guts outta whoever tromps through their jungle ticker-taping Aliens hoo-rah macho-tough-guy cliches outta their faces. At first, it’s little terrier-sized raptor ankle-biters, followed by bigger ones, and next thing you know, the Squad is split up and a handful end up strolling through fields alongside a handful of roaming giant sauropods and a couple guys are going over a cliff into the water with a got-damned tyrannosaurus tumbling right after them. The two guys are helped out by Sofia (Helfer), a morphine-addicted Russian paleontologist who describes herself to one of the soldiers as a “dinosaur superfreak, you stupid redneck fascist asswipe!”, and has all kinds of explanations about how the dinosaurs ended up there, and it includes the word “collider.” Neat! Of course, explanations aren’t really on the frontburner when you’re about to get your face bitten off, but at least we get one, ludicrous as it is.

Photo: Everett Collection

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Slopic Thunder? Jurassic Lark? The Bland Before Time? Apocalypse Now Minus 100 Million Years? Deinonychusland doesn’t really roll off the tongue. Anyway: It seems like Sparke is shooting for the sweet spot between Platoon and Jurassic Park, but that’s a tough target to hit. 

Performance Worth Watching: Kwanten blandly holds down the fort as the primary protag, Helfer frequently stumbles over her 100-meter Russian accent hurdles and rent-a-star (relatively speaking, anyway) Piven barks orders like a classic campy military-honcho S.O.B. in three or four scenes. I dunno. Take your pick, I guess.  

Sex And Skin: None.

Photo: Everett Collection

Our Take: Primitive War lingers in the gray area between watchable B-movie crap and patience-taxing B-movie crap. It’s almost so poker-faced it’s enjoyable, but only almost. It feels like a Syfy-grade mockbuster, but is more complex in its visual storytelling and, aside from a small handful of shots in which you can see the glue stick oozing through the paper (so to speak), it doesn’t look too bad for a modestly budget dinosaurs-amok creature feature. Piven, typecast as the slippery sleazy douchenozz of the movie, wanders close to the top but never goes over, unfortunately, while the rest of the cast recites the lulz-laden dialogue (imagine lines like “It’s like the f—in’ Flintstones, man!” funneled through actors who seem to have used Aliens as their primary reference) with baseline gusto.

All this is to say, the film doesn’t leave heavy footprints in the Camp Zone like you might expect. Sparke – adapting Ethan Pettus’ novel Primitive War: Opiate Undertow – hard-sells us grindhouse material with a cursory nod of respect to Our Boys Overseas for their sacrifice (one character struggles with PTSD), especially those that were devoured by Quetzalcoatluses. The result is tonal blandness that feels like it couldn’t really be repaired by leaning more serious or going full-on bananas. A good reference point is Kong: Skull Island, which fine-tunes the silliness quotient with some legit big laughs.

Of course, Kong also had a far bigger budget. Sometimes lower-rung flix like Primitive War are saved by some savvy action sequences, but Sparke either tries too hard with the slo-mo iconographic imagery, or dices up sequences like ham and potatoes for soup, landing in the reach-exceeds-the-grasp-of-the-budget category. It’s also way too long at 133 minutes; this should be a smash-and-grab, not a luxuriate-in-its-nonexistent-themes movie. Sparke ends up rolling out tropes – noble sacrifices, soldiers sharing their feelings during down time between shootin’ dinos, a boat going down the river to, if not the heart, then the gall bladder of darkness – on his way to a loud, lame conclusion. You’ll want to like this movie more than you actually will. 

Our Call: It’s not quite Primitive Snore but it comes a little too close. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.