65
Adam Driver as Mills in 65
(This review contains minor spoilers)
We’re in a strange era of cinema where the premise “Adam Driver shooting dinosaurs after crash landing on earth” doesn’t immediately yield thoughts of overwhelming positivity. Popcorn cinema can only rely so much on good faith for sticking with such a ridiculous premise (see Cocaine Bear), there needs to be something to chew on. Whether that’s an entertaining style or engaging substance, give audiences something. Unfortunately, this Jurassic Park meets Aliens meets The Last of Us mish-mash of ideas leaves one pondering just how easy it could’ve been to let this nonsense soar to comical, but well-realised, heights.
Driver plays pilot Mills, who heads off-world on a transport mission. After his spacecraft collides with an unexpected asteroid belt, he crash lands on Earth … 65 million years ago. All of his human cargo are dead, apart from one girl, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt). In this hostile environment, they must find a way home, or become some lucky Tyrannosaur’s dinner.
65 is such a bizarre tonal mash, compounded by poor editing and a weirdly semi-serious tone. After Adam Driver’s dying daughter arc was introduced within the first five minutes, I knew we were in for something that’s aggravatingly “meaningful”. That’s not to say you can’t have moments of earnest filmmaking in otherwise ridiculous movies (First Love comes to mind), but they need to be executed well. The acting is so ham-fisted and the worldbuilding so underdeveloped that we’re left stranded, confused and a little apathetic to everything that unfolds onwards. There’s squandered opportunity on the premise, and it’s left flailing for oxygen by moments of drama that simply do not work.
On the flip side, the set-pieces of dinosaur action are, oddly, watered down. If 65 was going for fear, it fails. It’s not difficult to make dinosaurs feel scary, but there’s so much reliance on the punchline of tension-building that I was left feeling more annoyed than afraid. If your film is dependent on loud, painful, ear-piercing noises to startle us – without a modicum of build-up – there’s something wrong. In fairness, I was left slightly clammy-handed by a cave sequence involving what appeared to be a psychopathic Oviraptor (think The Descent with a dinosaur), but it’s slim pickings overall.
To give 65 the benefit of the doubt, there are some intentionally hilarious moments. For example, Adam Driver is used more or less as a ragdoll for his surrounding environment. His character must’ve fallen over, broken bones, and had so many various dinosaur-esque monsters (oh, that’s another thing, these are some weird looking dinosaurs. Like, Victorian-era palaeontologists guesswork recreation level dinosaurs) come after him so many times that it became the highlight of the entire thing.
There was reason to have a little faith in 65, directors Scott Beck & Bryan Woods co-wrote a cracking and frightening monster movie with A Quiet Place, so what happened here? Too many ideas, perhaps. If you’re hoping for a wild flavour of sucrose cinema as Driver crusades through the cretaceous, manage your expectations.
65 is in UK cinemas now.