65 – Movie Review (2/5)

65 is an action-adventure with dinosaurs and Adam Driver, which is enough to make many curious. From the writers of A QUIET PLACE and with horror master Sam Raimi producing. This one didn’t really work for me in the ways I expected. Read our full 65 movie review below!

65 is out in US theaters now and the dinosaur action-adventure movie starring Adam Driver definitely had me curious. With the writers of A QUIET PLACE and horror master Sam “Evil Dead” Raimi as the producer, I probably expected too much.

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Or actually, I think the movie was sold as something different than what it is. The concept itself is simple, but the story still feels forced in too many ways. Don’t get me wrong, the dinosaurs look fantastic and the action scenes are solid. But it feels strangely off and I never really connected with the story.

Continue reading our 65 movie review below. Find it in US theaters (and many other countries globally) from March 10, 2023.

Adam Driver as an alien fighting dinosaurs

All you really need to say to make many people curious is that in 65, you’ll see Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs. Obviously, Adam Driver has already made big-budget blockbusters in the past with the Star Wars sequel trilogy. But aside from that huge franchise, he tends to do smaller movies, so this is a return to the action blockbusters for him.

ADAM DRIVER IN SMALLER MOVIES

Be sure to check out the Netflix movie White Noise starring Adam Driver >

Seeing Adam Driver flying around in space (and wearing mostly black) does bring you right back to his Kylo Ren character from Star Wars. However, that’s where the comparison to that character ends really. But Adam Driver’s character in 65, Mills, is not a human being. He is from another planet and the story plays out 65 million years ago.

When the movie opens, we see him with his wife and daughter on a foreign planet. Sure, it looks like Earth and they speak English (and later we discover they also measure distance in kilometers), but it is made very clear that he is not from our planet.

On a simple transport mission – that takes him away from his family for two years – his ship is forced to crash land on a foreign [to him] planet. We’re told that this is in fact our very own Earth. However, it’s 65 million years ago, which means the dinosaurs rule the planet.

A classic survival story

The story in 65 is actually a very simple and classic survival story. Mills (Adam Driver) crashes on a foreign planet and needs to get back home. Everyone on board the transport ship died in the crash except for one girl. And yes, of course, she’s around the age of his daughter.

The girl, Koa, doesn’t speak English. This results in 65 having little dialogue as the characters revert to drawing and a form of charades. It works well enough for Mills to explain to Koa that they need to get to the one viable rescue pod 15 kilometers away. Ariana Greenblat (Love and Monsters) plays the role of Koa and does a wonderful job.

Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblat work really well together, which does help the story. A little. And what doesn’t work is not their fault.

Watch 65 in movie theaters now!

I know that the names Scott Beck and Bryan Woods immediately lead to A Quiet Place. However, they “only” wrote that movie. John Krasinski helped finish the script and directed the movie. And A Quiet Place 2 for that matter.

However, to me, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are also the brilliant duo behind the fierce Halloween horror thriller Haunt (2019). A movie they co-wrote and co-directed. These two filmmakers clearly have everything needed to make a brilliant blockbuster. So why doesn’t 65 work better?

I just can’t shake the feeling that this story could just as well have played out a few decades ago on our planet. Say in a jungle where there are plenty of things that could kill human beings as well. The only reason 65 is set on our planet 65 million years ago, is so that we can watch dinosaurs.

Also, the biggest mystery for me, is how a movie that has a runtime of just around 90 minutes, can be anything less than a whirlwind of dinosaur action scenes. Surely, this could have been the case, but it just isn’t. Yet, if you can, you should absolutely watch this in a movie theater. If not, it’s still fine to watch at home, when it’s released digitally.

Now that is something I never expected to say about a sci-fi action movie with dinosaurs.

65 is out in theaters in the US (and many other countries) from March 10, 2023.

Details

Director: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods
Writer: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods
Cast: Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman