Say “dinosaur movie” and almost everyone pictures the same thing: “Jurassic Park.” The 1993 original is routinely ranked among the greatest films ever made, mixing genuine scares with humor, revolutionary visual effects, and a career-defining Jeff Goldblum performance. More than 30 years on, it’s still one of the highest-grossing movies in history, and NASA has even praised it as one of the more scientifically grounded sci-fi blockbusters — velociraptor pack-hunting behavior aside.
That single film spawned an entire franchise: two direct sequels in the ’90s and early 2000s, a full relaunch as “Jurassic World” starting in 2015 (four films and counting, with another entry reportedly targeting 2028), plus books, comics, and a Netflix animated spin-off, “Jurassic World: Chaos Theory.”
What most casual fans don’t realize is that the franchise’s track record with critics is shakier than its box office numbers suggest. Five of the seven mainline films carry a “Rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes — only the first “Jurassic Park” and the first “Jurassic World” reboot cleared “Fresh.” Meanwhile, a scrappy, low-budget dinosaur film with zero connection to the Jurassic universe has quietly out-scored all five of those “Rotten” entries. Set in the jungles of Vietnam rather than a theme park, “Primitive War” trades family-friendly spectacle for R-rated carnage — and a sequel is already on the way.
What Is Primitive War?
Directed by Luke Sparke (of “Occupation: Rainfall”) and released in 2025, “Primitive War” is an Australian sci-fi horror film adapted from Ethan Pettus’s novel of the same name, with Pettus also co-writing the screenplay.
The story takes place in 1968, during the Vietnam War. “True Blood” alum Ryan Kwanten leads the Vulture Squad, a recon unit sent into a hidden jungle valley to track down a Green Beret platoon that vanished without a trace. What the squad finds instead is a valley crawling with dinosaurs — the byproduct of covert Soviet research — forcing the soldiers to fall back on raw survival instinct rather than standard tactics to keep the creatures from escaping and wreaking havoc far beyond the valley.
The supporting cast is stacked with recognizable names: Nick Wechsler (“Revenge”), Tricia Helfer (the voice of EDI in “Mass Effect 2”), Jeremy Piven (“Entourage”), and Aaron Glenane (“Shantaram”). And this is very much not a “Jurassic Park”-style family outing — think heavy violence, hard language, and buckets of gore, landing somewhere between “Predator” and dino-disaster cinema.
Why It’s Worth Your Time
“Primitive War” was never going to compete with Spielberg’s box office numbers — it earned roughly $1.26 million worldwide across a limited theatrical run in Australia and select other markets. But its budget wasn’t remotely comparable either: director Luke Sparke has said the film was made for around $7 million, a fraction of what a modern tentpole costs.
Relative to that budget, the critical response is genuinely strong. “Primitive War” holds a 60% Tomatometer score and an 85% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. That Tomatometer number actually edges out “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” — the worst-reviewed entry in the entire Jurassic franchise — which sits at 57% critics and just 52% audience.
Reviewers largely responded to its scrappy energy: Flickering Myth pointed to the film’s bite as a highlight, and Film Threat called it the dino movie genre fans had been craving. Not everyone was won over, though — Empire leaned into its B-movie identity, framing it as unapologetic creature-feature fun, while Decider was far less kind, joking that the film flirted with being a snooze.
If you want to judge for yourself, “Primitive War” is currently streaming on Hulu — and there’s good reason to catch up now, since Sparke has confirmed “Primitive War 2” is already in production, with a targeted 2027 release.
