- by Sebastian Peady
- The Guardian
- Issue #2163
Primitive War is an Australian film written and directed by Luke Sparke, and based on the self-published book series by Ethan Pettus, who also co-wrote the film. The film opens in perhaps the most clichéd manner for a film about the Vietnam war; a squadron of helicopters flying over the Vietnamese jungle as “Fortunate Son” plays. At this point, it feels like we’re in for a bog-standard Vietnam war epic along the lines of ‘Platoon’ or ‘Apocalypse now,’ only cheaper.
Things brighten up for the jaded viewer when the heroes, a group of American soldiers called Vulture Squad, are sent into a mysterious valley in search of several missing Green Berets. A series of strange findings leads Vulture Squad to discover that the soldiers they’re looking for have been killed and eaten by dinosaurs.
Primitive War certainly falls flat in regard to story and characters. The members of Vulture Squad, who we spend most of the film with, are all rather generic, with little to distinguish each character from the others that couldn’t be written on a Post-it note. There is the leader, the young rookie, the one who complains, and the one with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is also a squad of minor Soviet characters whose mission in Vietnam is to be evil and bump into Vulture Squad once in a while. These characters sadly only exist as a proxy for the cold war. Their collective depth of character could be written on a single Post-It.
In the tradition of more successful Vietnam war movies there is only one Vietnamese character, a North Vietnamese soldier serving as a reluctant guide for some one-note soviets. Her big moment is when she screams ahistorically at the soviets for “turning my country into a war zone,” something that was actually the fault of the French, the USA and (in this flick) the dinosaurs.
At this point dinosaurs in the cinema would be a relief, never mind the movie. The creatures are definitely the highlight of the film, rendered in surprisingly good CGI considering the film’s incredibly low $8 million budget. I couldn’t stop smiling every time a dinosaur was on screen, not only from the dumb fun of the ridiculous yet enjoyable premise, but also because I just love dinosaurs. The design of Primitive War’s dinosaurs show a surprising commitment to scientific accuracy. I like dinosaur accuracy almost as I dislike US-centred cliché-mongering.
This may not be everyone’s pack of pretzels, but it was nice to see the Deinonychus and Utahraptors, larger relatives of the famous but frequently misrepresented Velociraptor, with feathers, including tail fans and ‘wing’ feathers on their arms. Quetzalcoatlus, not a dinosaur, but a pterosaur the size of a small plane, is covered in simple fur-like feathers, as we now know they were. This attention to detail is a refreshing and appreciated change from Jurassic Park’s bland, grey, and woefully outdated representation of dinosaurs, and pterosaurs, as big, lizardy monsters. If only Primitive War’s treatment of the Vietnam war had a fraction of the realism.
Primitive War is definitely a dumb movie, but it’s dumb fun especially if you love dinosaurs. One and half red stars for the film itself, five red stars out of five for the dinosaurs and pterosaurs.
