2018 - OCCUPATION, space alien invasion stuff from Australia

Yet another space alien invasion story.  Let's get this out of the way the film is clearly beholden to War of the Worlds, Battle:  Los Angeles, Independence Day and particularly Red Dawn.  Space aliens have landed on earth in particular the Australian Outback.  A plucky group of survivors flee into the woods and set up a makeshift camp where they learn survival skills and begin to carry out a commando war against the aliens who are up to a nefarious purpose.

You can't argue there isn't enough action in this film, it has lots of shooting, ray gun blasting, car chases and explosions to keep the non discriminating action freak satisfied.  There is some attention paid to characterization.  One guy suffers from depression, there is a pregnant young couple, an ex-con whose family has been put in an alien concentration camp, the usual stuff.  

 

The is a B-movie with a fairly decent budget but it's still a B-movie.  It's entertaining in it's own way and has the required big action climax which feels a little tacked on.  The acting is decent for the most part. The special effects are not that bad.  

 

An attempt is made to send a message of brotherhood between the earthlings and the space aliens but who the hell is interested in that.  Peace is peachy but fighting is more exciting.  There is actually a sequel to this thing called Occupation: Rainfall. 

The film was written by the director, Luke Sparke, the running time is 119 minutes. 

2025 - PRIMITIVE WAR, the "B" movie lives on

It's 1968 and we're in Vietnam where an elite group of Green Berets have been sent to a hidden valley to find out what happened to a previous squad of soldiers.  Well surprise surprise the valley is full of hungry dinosaurs who are part of a time travel experiment the evil Russians have been running.  This film isn't called Primitive War for nothing.  Yes this is a cross between Jurassic Park, Apocalypse Now, Platoon and a whole bunch of Vietnam war movies I've missed. 

You can put this in the 12 year old boy category of films.  There's man eating dinosaurs, lots of gun play, evil Russians, people getting graphically eaten by dinosaurs and a goofy science fiction subplot to tie it all together.  The cast seems game and appears to enjoy shooting their guns because there is a lot a shooting of dinosaurs so we don't have to deal with pesky things like character development and dialog.  The film was shot in Australia which is obviously subbing for Vietnam.  The film's budget was 7 million dollars, B movies aren't that cheap anymore.

 

The special effects are of a variable quality.  The CGI dinosaurs look better in the dark than the light.  It costs a lot of money these days to make realistic phony dinosaurs.  The director/writer Luke Sparke must be a real auteur since he has his name on about every other title in the credit scroll.  This is very enjoyable foolishness and yes there is a woman in the film because there always has to be a woman in a film like this.  Primitive War is certainly more enjoyable than those recent Jurassic World films.

 

The film was written by Ethan Pettus and Luke Sparke, the running time is 133 minutes.