Primitive War's Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score Beats Six Jurassic Park Movies

For what feels like decades, if you've wanted to see dinosaurs in movies, it's pretty much been the "Jurassic Park"/"Jurassic World" movies and everything else. The problem, largely, is that the pool of everything else is pretty damn small, especially if we take low-budget, direct-to-home-media or made-for-Syfy trash off the table. Occasionally, we've gotten something like the Adam Driver-starring "65" to help fill the void, but such movies are relatively few and far between. But 2025 has given us a big, audacious new entry in the dinosaur film canon in the form of "Primitive War," and it seems that audiences are very much on board with director Luke Sparke's take on the sub-genre.

The movie takes place in Vietnam circa 1968 and centers on Vulture Squad, a recon unit that's been sent to an isolated valley deep in the jungle to uncover the fate of a missing platoon. Before long, though, they discover they're not alone because, surprise, it turns out there are dinosaurs all over this place.

"Primitive War," which is based on the novel series of the same name by author Ethan Pettus, currently holds a 57% approval rating from critics (based on 14 reviews) over at Rotten Tomatoes. That, obviously, is not great. However, the film's audience rating sits at a damn good 85%. On that front, it has performed better than every single "Jurassic" sequel. Yes, really. Here's how it all shakes out:

• "Primitive War" – Critic rating 57% / audience rating 85%

• "Jurassic Park" – Critic rating 91% / audience rating 91%

• "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" — Critic rating 56% / audience rating 52%

• "Jurassic Park III" — Critic rating 49% / audience rating 37%

• "Jurassic World" — Critic rating 71% / audience rating 78%

• "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" — Critic rating 47% / audience rating 48%

• "Jurassic World Dominion" — Critic rating 29% / audience rating 77%

• "Jurassic World Rebirth" — Critic rating 50% / audience rating 71%

There's a lot to consider looking at these numbers. For one, the "Jurassic" movies have a lot more user ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. "Jurassic World Rebirth," the most recent entry in the franchise, has over 10,000 verified audience ratings, whereas "Primitive War" has more than 250. That's obviously a gigantic difference in sample size. Still, those numbers will surely go up after "Primitive War" arrives on digital on October 3 and people get the chance to watch it at home.

With "Jurassic," we're also talking about a $6 billion franchise when it comes to the box office. After the commercial success "Rebirth" enjoyed over the summer, that number is now much closer to $7 billion. So, no matter what those ratings say in terms of audience satisfaction, people keep showing up for these movies over and over again. To whatever degree a percentage of viewers are dissatisfied with the "Jurassic World" films, it isn't impacting the bottom line all that much.

At the same time, it's clear that audiences who have seen what Sparke has to offer the genre are responding to it. I personally called "Primitive War" the greatest non-"Jurassic" dinosaur movie ever, just to put my cards on the table. It's offering something totally different from what we're accustomed to in this department, and that seems to be resonating with viewers. It's outlandish, it's epic in scale, it's overflowing with dinosaurs, and it was somehow all done without the backing of a major studio. Indeed, "Primitive War" is a lower budget affair, but it doesn't skimp on the action or the dinosaurs.

The point being, audiences clearly love dinosaurs. But dinosaurs aren't a piece of intellectual property a studio can own, and the "Jurassic" franchise certainly doesn't have a monopoly on the idea. Anyone can enter this arena. What the response to "Primitive War" tells us is that perhaps others should, especially since advancements in visual effects technology now allow for these movies to be made without $200 million budgets.

You can wishlist "Primitive War" on Amazon Prime Video.