Prehistoric War feels like a more realistic version of Jurassic Park, one that’s filled with profanities and graphically violent dinosaur attacks. That realistic approach to what a dinosaur attack probably would look like (along with a little nudity) also makes it extremely problematic for families.
When you’re a colonel, it’s not good news when you hear that your squadron of special forces just got completely wiped out by an unknown force.
But let me tell you, it’s worse news when you’re the squad of low-ranking soldiers commanded to find out what happened to them.
That assignment falls to Vulture Squad, led by Sgt. Baker. The exhausted American men have just returned from rescuing a couple of POWs from a Viet Cong outpost, and they were hoping to spend the rest of the Vietnam War imbibing and sleeping their traumas away.
Reluctantly, they climb aboard a chopper and fly into a nearby valley, where the Green Berets’ final transmission originated.
When they land, it isn’t long before Baker and his men locate ammunition casings scattered on the ground; giant, bird-like tracks on the ground; a massive feather, far larger than any ostrich or emu could shed; a filled notebook dropped by one of the Green Beret soldiers.
“We lost Lewis last night,” its words report. “We’re being hunted.”
Off in the distance, we hear a prehistoric roar.
At various points in the film, Baker has chances to extract himself and his team. However, he refuses to do so, not wanting to leave behind the soldiers in his squad with whom he has yet to regroup. Baker’s selfless attitude guides his decisions throughout the whole movie. He always chooses the harder path in the hope that his actions will help save more people.
He also meets his men where they are. When they need tough love, he motivates them with it; and when they just need a word of comfort, he knows to provide that to them, too.
A few people put aside their national allegiances to work together against the bigger, prehistoric threat.
Some characters sacrifice themselves so that others can live.
Squad member Miller is a Catholic, and we see him reading his Bible while holding a crucifix and rosary beads. His belief causes other soldiers to poke fun at him occasionally. At one point, he begs God for forgiveness for a past sin. When someone dies, Miller says the man is in God’s hands.
One soldier mentions a time when his whisky flask stopped a bullet from killing him, and Miller suggests that it was God who saved him. Another soldier grows indignant, telling Miller that he’ll need more than God to save them from their dinosaur infestation.
When Baker learns of a research station’s failures, he retorts. “Look at where playing God got us.” And later, Baker states that “no God, no country, no man should have this power,” referencing a Russian experiment.
A woman claims that demons took her husband from her. Someone else calls a man an “American demon.” One character cynically says that the group is “following a junkie into hell.” Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Run Through the Jungle” plays, and it includes the phrase, “The devil’s on the loose.”
A soldier passes out pornographic magazines to the others; as one soldier glances through it, we can see a woman’s bare chest on the cover. Someone else mentions wanting to see breasts. When soldiers tease a new recruit, asking if he’s ever seen a naked woman before, the soldier fires back, “Does your mother count?”
A woman’s outfit reveals cleavage.
Primitive War treats its dinosaurs like animals, and these animals tear through flesh like the ravenous beasts they are. Before the credits roll, we estimate the movie’s death count to be around 100—both from human and dinosaur perpetrators.
Let’s start with the gruesome dinosaur attacks: These beasts tear, chomp and claw at their victims to grisly effect. A Quetzalcoatlus (flying dinosaur) uses its beak to spear a man in the stomach, and it pulls out and eats the still-living man’s entrails before his eyes. Another man’s stomach gets clawed open by velociraptors, and we see his intestines (the scene continues for some time as his rescuers expend resources attempting to patch the screaming man up).
A T-rex munches on human victims, sometimes turning them into red mist, sometimes leaving a leg or arm behind on the ground. A Russian man dies when a dinosaur chomps on his head, leaving him a pulpy mess. Others die from surprise attacks that mostly occur offscreen. We see a variety of corpses in differing states of decomposition (most of which have obviously been chewed on by the dinosaurs that killed them). A man commits suicide by shooting himself in the head, and small dinosaurs come to feast on his body.
Someone stabs a raptor in the eye with a knife. Plenty of other dinosaurs die after being shot or stabbed. A man blows himself up to take some dinosaurs with him. A Spinosaurus bites down on a triceratops’ neck, killing it. Someone kills a T. rex pup. Some dinosaurs explode from grenades.
But this is a warzone, so we also see humans kill other humans: We even see a brief flashback to dead children who were killed by American soldiers. Some Viet Cong and Russian combatants die from gunshots or knife attacks. Someone decapitates a man. Soldiers fire finishing shots into corpses as they pass by. One person receives a gunshot wound to the upper thigh. A man suffers from radiation poisoning. We see the bodies of tortured American soldiers. An explosion eviscerates a few people.
One character says he will “personally crucify” someone, using very harsh profanity to punctuate that threat. He also claims that he will rip a man’s skin off and make ponchos out of it. We’re told a story of a general who executed his own men.
We hear roughly 195 uses of the f-word (including five uses preceded by “mother”). For clarity, the f-bombs dropped so fast that I may have missed a few.
We hear about 60 uses of the s-word. Vulgarities involving male and female genitalia are spoken, too. Other crudities include “a–,” “b–ch,” “h—,” “d–n” and “p-ss.” God’s name is used in vain more 20 times, including 12 instances paired with “d–n.” Jesus’ name is likewise taken in vain 11 times, including four uses with the f-word.
Soldiers use derogatory racial slurs to describe the Vietnamese locals.
A woman has an addiction to morphine, injecting herself with the stuff. Later, she goes through withdrawal. A man drinks liquor and talks about being inebriated later. Men and women smoke cigars and cigarettes.
One character suffers through schizophrenic voices. Firefights during nighttime scenes result in an intense strobe effect that may bother some viewers.
If you’ve ever watched the Jurassic Park series and thought, “Man, this would be so much better if it took place during the Vietnam War,” well, have I got a movie for you.
But there’s a big caveat: Primitive War makes the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World franchise look like a kiddie ride in terms of content issues. The dinosaur attacks here are absolutely brutal, with victims screaming in agony as the beasts rip and ingest soldiers’ entrails before their eyes. After all, no one ever said dinosaurs were clean eaters.
So there’s a harsh realism here. I’d imagine a mess of gore and blood is exactly how a dinosaur would snack on its kill, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch, especially when the victims are still alive.
All of that bloodshed is served alongside a fair number of other content issues, too. When the soldiers run out of traditional ammunition, they’re quite happy to resort to a different type of weapon: the f-bomb, of which they deploy roughly 200 times. A topless woman appears on a magazine cover, and one character suffers from a morphine addiction.
For a movie that lasts more than two hours, I’ll admit that Primitive War effectively stretched its meager $7 million budget (despite a few scenes where the CGI could have used more polishing). The movie also brings back some of the horror that the Jurassic World franchise arguably lost over the years.
But all of those graphic content issues? It seems the movie took the advice of the obligatory “Fortunate Son” lyrics it blasts during its Vietnam War establishing shots: “And when you ask ‘em, ‘How much should we give?’/Hoo, they only answer, ‘More, more, more, more.’”
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
