Primitive War (2025)

"More Fun than JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH"

Signature Entertainment are giving a much-deserved cinema release to PRIMITIVE WAR, a low budget (around $7 million if reports are to be believed) affair that pits Vietnam soldiers against dinosaurs, has plenty of monster action, and even at 135 minutes won't have you zoning out the way this year's JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH did.

We're in Vietnam in 1968. After some shenanigans rescuing a couple of POWs from the Vietcong, a platoon of soldiers known as the Vulture Squad are recruited to investigate the mysterious disappearance of some Green Berets in a distant jungle valley. When they arrive they are surprised (to put it mildly) to find the place crawling with dinosaurs. It's all the result of some pesky Russian experiment with wormholes, or something, and the Russians are keen to prevent the US from discovering what they have been up to. This the stage is set for a massive smackdown between US soldiers, Russian forces, and several boatloads of dinosaurs.

What you want from a film like PRIMITIVE WAR is lots of dinosaurs and lots of action, and the film doesn't skimp on either. There's also a refreshingly large variety of dinosaurs on display, and while the explanation for what's been going on is hardly the stuff of hard science the film doesn't give you much space to ponder it. 

As a dinosaur movie PRIMITIVE WAR is faster moving and a lot more fun than JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH. As a military vs the monsters movie it's stratospherically better than Neil Marshall's THE LAIR (not difficult) but it's also a more entertaining watch than Julius Avery's OVERLORD. The CGI is absolutely fine and while the characterisation is a bit thin in the first act by the climax you'll be able to list all the members of Vulture Squad and how some of them meet their ends. Of course you'll have to watch the film to see who makes it out alive. Here's the trailer:

PRIMITIVE WAR is on general cinema release in the UK through the Odeon, Vue and Showcase chains from Friday 28th November 2025