[FILM REVIEW] PRIMITIVE WAR Review (2025)

Summary: Vietnam. 1968. A recon unit known as Vulture Squad is sent to an isolated jungle valley to uncover the fate of a missing Green Beret platoon. They soon discover they are not alone.

Year: 2025

Cinema Release Dates:  21st August 2025 (Australia), TBA (Thailand), TBA (UK), 21st August 2025 (USA)

VOD Release Dates: TBA

Country: Australia

Director: Luke Sparke

Screenwriter: Luke Sparke

Cast: Ben Corlett (Nikita), Grady Ferricks-Rosevear, Kawakawa Fox-Reo (Ricardo), Roberto Garcia (Garcia), Aaron Glenane (Logan), Tricia Helfer (Sofia), Blair Hiscock (Jerzy Belowski), Anthony Ingruber (Keyes), Marcus Johnson (Ibex), M.J. Kokolis (Sergei), Ryan Kwanten (Baker), Lincoln Lewis (Zimmer), Nathan Lust (Kendrick), Albert Mwangi (Miller), Ana Thu Nguyen (Con Nhen), Henry Nixon (Bishop), Ryan Panizza (Tolstoy), Jeremy Piven (Colonel Jericho), John Reynolds (Alexandr), Jake Ryan (Major Wallace), Carlos Sanson Jr. (Leon), Jeremy Lindsay Taylor (Borodin), Adolphus Waylee (Xavier), Nick Wechsler (Eli)

Running Time: 135 minutes

Classification:MA15+ (Australia), TBC (Thailand), TBC (UK), TBC (USA)

OUR PRIMITIVE WAR REVIEWS

Kyle McGrath’s Primitive War Review

Everyone’s heard the song ‘Fortune Son’ by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Released in 1969 the song is and always has been an anti-Vietnam war song about the injustices of classism. That the lucky sons of senators and millionaires got to sit out the war while regular people were sent to die in the jungle. But there’s an often-forgotten verse to that song usually cut from radio play. A verse about dinosaurs…

Vulture Squad are exactly the kind of recon unit needed in Vietnam. Led by Baker (Ryan Kwanten) the well-oiled team of miscreants get in, eliminate and extract from the toughest patches of 1968 Vietcong territory. Having just performed yet another successful operation and hoping for some R&R they’re instead received by Colonel Jericho (Jeremy Piven) with new orders. Recovery of a missing platoon of Green Berets, what were they searching for? It’s classified. 

What Vulture Squad find however are gigantic footprints. It seems impossible but deep in the jungle dinosaurs roam the Earth! American soldiers may not belong in Vietnam but neither do these ferocious beasts on the hunt. Coming in contact with a research scientist named Sofia (Tricia Helfer) Baker and Vulture Squad are left with a choice. Escape with their lives or push on into the heart of darkness, discover the cause of this phenomena and put and stop to it.

Director Luke Sparke has made a name for himself delivering ambitious special effects driven stories on a local Australian level. His scifi ‘Occupation’ franchise is still turning heads but for his latest film he returns partly to where he began. Working in costume and art departments on various historical military productions (such as ‘The Pacific’) before becoming a filmmaker in his own right. So Ethan Pettus’ debut scifi-horror novel ‘Primitive War: Opiate Undertow’ seems like a perfect fit for ‘Sparke Films’.

I’m a fan of Luke Sparke as a filmmaker and appreciate his go get them attitude. It isn’t easy to make the types of films he spearheads in Australia and even when they are a little rough around the edges it’s impossible to not be impressed at what Sparke brings to the table as a determined filmmaker. His background in production design and his role here as visual effects supervisor (as he was on 2020’s Occupation: Rainfall) ensure that this is his most stunning and grand film to date.

The CGI effects throughout the movie deserve credit right off the bat. During production as much was done with practical effects as possible using CGI only when absolutely necessary. A reason that Jurassic Park still looks great 30 years on while many modern pictures don’t is because that film utilised a similar approach as the one used here. Your special effects guys have much more time to make dinosaurs when they’re not spending time producing EVERYTHING within the film in CGI.

Being a Vietnam war movie of course the comparisons to classics like Apocalypse Now (1979) are raised. Much like the making of that film location filming in valleys where practically nobody has ever stepped foot must have been an absolute nightmare. But it pays off with everything looking so believable even before getting to the realistically rendered dinosaurs! Action is stunning and gunfights are intense, this is one Australian film I most definitely will be hoping will see a 4K physical media release.

The characters of Primitive War could easily just be used as a means to an end. Meat puppets with names waiting to be eaten in gory ways. Well, the second part might be true (there is a crazy amount of blood in this film!) but characters are well acted and varied. Taking a lot of their personalities from Pettus’ source novel everybody feels like a fully fleshed out person. Some suffering from PTSD or with feelings of guilt over war crimes. Some with addiction issues or other mental health quirks. Vietnam War veteran and frequent military advisor to the entertainment industry Dale Dye provided input to Primitive War’s screenplay. So while the film is a farcical take on war it still has respect for those who served in it. 

That said…the movie is just a hell of a lot of fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and the ways in which it does still feel like something from a gritty comic book or pulp novel. In the same way one could say that Sin City (2005) took on dark subject matter like child abuse…but in a story involving a yellow mutated paedophile!

Some of the acting, particularly the Russian accents, are a little hokey and the film takes a little bit to find it’s correct footing. However, once it does it’s a balls to the wall explosion of violence, warfare, dinosaurs and masculinity. Everything 10 year old me loved in his movies rolled up in one!

If there’s one movie in his filmography which shows what Luke Sparke is capable of as a director it is Primitive War. With a filmography spanning various genres it may sound odd to say “the one with the dinosaurs is his best film” but honestly the same thing could be said for Stephen Spielberg! This is a movie with a heap of entertainment value and one which I’m looking forward to seeing again in the future.

Kyle’s rating Out Of 5

David Griffiths and Harley Woods’s Primitive War Review

David’s rating Out Of 5

Harley’s rating Out Of 5

Average Subculture rating Out Of 5

Other Subculture Entertainment Primitive War Reviews

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