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Rating: 1.5 out of 5
When the trailer of 65 dropped on YouTube, I was all about it. A film starring Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs intrigued me. I have seen a few of Driver’s films from the Star Wars films, along with Lucky Logan, BlacKklansman, and Marriage Story, to name a few. I was hyped for 65. I had no clue what it would be about. Still, dinosaurs were enough for me, especially when the dinosaur silhouette was against the waterfall.
You know what the world got after I watched this film?? Another After Earth. That’s freakin right. Another After Earth that was a tad bit better than that awful film, but it might as well have been the same freakin movie. The amount of disappointment I had was high. I am still figuring out where to start with this film, but here we go.
The film starts 65 million years ago but here is the thing, Earth is some distant ass planet and we begin on the planet Somaris that is far more technologically advanced. We are introduced to Mills (Driver), a pilot who convinces his wife that he should go on a two-year space expedition to earn enough money to treat their daughter’s illness. Mills will get that bag and make BANK from the expedition. The movie goes to Mills on the ship when it is hit by a colossal ass asteroid. The ship crash lands and an “alien” planet that happens to be Earth, 65 million years ago. In any film with a crash landing, almost everyone is dead. Have you ever realized that the passengers are usually in Cryogenic induced sleep? This shit makes you not want to do space travel. Also, you’re on a freakin spaceship. It seems like no spacecraft has asteroid radar. Forget autopilot; you might as well drive that spaceship yourself. Oh wait, Mills was up.
Sorry, off track. The film then goes with Mills, seeing everyone die. BUT WAIT…….. a young girl named Koa (Greenblatt) survives the crashlanding but speaks a different language, and the translator breaks in the process. The film goes into full drive with Mills launching a distress beacon for rescue, but while searching, he finds bones of dinosaurs. Oh, but how about this? Mills has an excellent weapon but a device that scans stuff to say whether it is edible. Cool, no what? Well, with any movie like this, a disaster is about to happen. That disaster is a giant asteroid headed straight towards the planet. Mills manages to locate an escape pod that is 15 kilometers away. Koa and he head off to make it but are attacked on all sides by man-eating dinosaurs.
That is enough of what the film is about. There were a few intense scenes. Pretty much anything with dinosaurs attacking was cool to watch because Mills goes ham against those beasts. For some reason, some four-legged dinosaurs or two-legged ones always cause the most damage and intensity. Mills shoots everything and anything in sight. It is almost like his weapon has unlimited ammo. The final dinosaur scene was okay. When you have dinosaurs, you MUST have a T-Rex. In this film, the T-Rex isn’t the final boss. They have some mix of a dinosaur being the main villain, and I was DONE. Don’t disrespect the T-Rex!
The film probably loses people with the dynamic between Koa and Mills. It is okay to have a kid with the story, but the whole language barrier made it difficult to watch as she would say something that no one had any idea about, and Mills made some hand gestures. Initially, it was hard, but as the film went on, they seemed to understand each other and help in the end. In this film, it always seems like the kid’s parents die, and the main character lies about them being alive and going to them to make the kid comply with what he is doing. Something was missing from this whole thing that made it seem blah.
Speaking of the asteroid, if you don’t know, it refers to the extinction of the dinosaurs. That is where the film went off the cliff for me. It is one thing to call the movie 65, but to show humans from another planet crash land and escape before the asteroid hit was blah. That is why people didn’t care because it seemed like we are aliens now. The montage at the end shows where Koa and Mills escaped and the ice age to the present with man. Did Mills people come back and inhabit the land? That would’ve been an interesting film. The film fell flat with trying to add too much information and make a compelling story.
Regarding the acting, Adam Driver as Mills tried to hold this film together. He was the father figure and the one who wanted to escape danger even if he made stupid mistakes. The biggest and most frustrating was when he climbed up the tree and fell from it, dislocating his shoulder. What happens?? Dinosaurs attack the fool. It made for a thrilling scene. This was one of Driver’s lesser works.
Ariana Greenblatt as Koa was okay. She spoke another language and had to portray most of her words and emotions through her facial expressions. She was decent in this film and has much more to offer in the movie industry. Keep collecting those checks.
65 is one of those films that didn’t need to be made. It was like After Earth and should have stayed buried for the next 65 million years. Driver tries, but with a film like this, he should’ve skipped out. The action scenes are okay, but when you have movies like Jurassic Park, you can skip this film. Remember, Jurassic Park was 65 million years in the making.
