65 – Movie Review
Dead on Arrival (65, 2023): Adam Driver's Dinosaur Adventure
65 (2023), starring Adam Driver as a space pilot who crashes lands on Earth 65 million years ago in the midst of some threatening dinosaurs, has a nice idea but then does nothing with it.
At all.
In 65, Adam Driver plays Mills, a pilot preparing to go on a two-year assignment that would pay him handsomely. Mills needs the money to cure his sick daughter, Nevine (Chloe Coleman). Nevertheless, the spacecraft gets hit by a meteor and crashes on an unknown planet, which turns out to be prehistoric Earth. Only Mills and a little girl called Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) get it out of the cave alive, and the father, remembering his own daughter, is determined to return the kid to safety. The details of this mission include ascending a mountain in order to retrieve Mills' escape pod, which fell on the peak when his spacecraft broke in half. There's a forest full of ravenous dinosaurs on their path.
Furthermore, I should mention. This day also marks the impending meteor attack responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. Therefore, the apocalyptic meteor strike will obliterate Mills and Koa if they don't leave the planet.
This film might have gone in a number of interesting directions. Unfortunately, there isn't much to this movie that will make you ponder.
Let's get to know the characters first. Mills and his people aren't from Earth, yet they look and talk much as we humans do. Yet, they are due to crash land on Earth during a period when humans did not yet exist, which led me to wonder if maybe there were any PROMETHEUS (2012)-style notions circulating about, according to which these people would somehow become the parents of the human species. Yet, it is not the focus of this film. Indeed, they pass for humans in the STAR WARS canon as well, but let's not forget that the series is more of an adventure fantasy than a hard science fiction epic. So, why is it so much worse in 1965 compared to the STAR WARS films? Not at all. The fact that these aliens appear and behave precisely like humans makes them stand out a bit more in this context, and not in a positive way, since this is a stand-alone picture.
Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who both directed the film, struggle from the start to live up to the promise of their own script. Despite what should be an easy recipe for tension and excitement, the film struggles to establish either in its opening minutes. After the accident, Mills is left to attempt to piece together what occurred, but as an audience member, I couldn't help but think, Of course, they fell on Earth, especially in a region teeming with dinosaurs! If the ship's inhabitants were still alive, we'd see them quickly dispatch the dinosaurs. So when Mills looks around the jungle, you know he's not going to be killed because the movie would then be over after about ten minutes, and there's neither suspense nor excitement. Instead, the script makes the questionable decision to kill everyone on board in the crash, except for Mills (and then later Koa when he discovers her alive).
MOVIE REVIEW
Business trips are just the worst. Just ask Mills.
The initial proposal was for a two-year interstellar voyage during which cryogenically frozen individuals would be sent on an "exploratory expedition." Being away from home for two years is difficult, particularly if you have a sick daughter. So how else can Mills pay for his daughter's medical care? Mills' native world of Somaris supposedly has healthcare costs that are comparable to Earth's.
Even if everything had gone according to plan, there would have been problems with the work. Yet as every traveler knows, sometimes the unexpected happens, like a lethal asteroid storm or a delay in maintenance. The latter struck Mills' spacecraft, sending it careening off course and eventually crashing on an unknown green and incredibly lethal planet.
The ship's front section, to which Mills is tethered, has crash-landed in a fetid bog. Everything else, including the ship's only operational escape pods, is now perched on a mountain a good ten kilometers distant. The collision was heard for ten miles, which may not seem like very far, but it was the equivalent of sounding the tea gong for the local wildlife.
Well, and when you're responsible for a girl of nine you're babysitting.
Koa, the other lone survivor, is a young woman. The fact that she doesn't speak English further adds to the complexity of the situation. Considering Mills's origins in Solaris, it's puzzling that he speaks the language so well. Her parents have passed away, but she does not yet realize this. The Earth as a whole appears to be rooting for her demise, as will become abundantly evident.
Along with fighting little dinosaurs, enormous dinosaurs, and truly colossal dinosaurs, Mills and Koa will have to navigate rivers and forests while avoiding toxic fruit and sneaky parasites.
What about that meteor shower? It's on its way to them, too. You know, just spice things up a little.
At least Mills wasn't traveling first class.
Review by Eddie on 25/03/2023
It's the kind of huge-budgeted B-movie you'd expect from someone like John Carpenter back in his 80s heyday, but definitely not from the critically acclaimed actor Adam Driver. Although having a brilliant idea that might be gold if mined properly, 65, the original attempt from Sam Raimi, is only adequate entertainment assisted along by the skill set of its leading man, Bruce Willis. The film's budget was near to $100 million.
Directed by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, still best known for writing A Quiet Place but also responsible for Nightlight and Haunt, 65 is the type of no-frills exercise that wastes minimal screentime bothering about anything in the way of significant character development or plot establishment as Driver's doting father and astronaut Mills has his deep space expedition rudely interrupted by an asteroid storm.
65, which has been described as a cross between John Wick and Jurassic Park, follows a tried-and-true formula for films of this type, with Woods and Beck failing to give the film any truly memorable set pieces, many of which feature completely fabricated versions of dinosaurs that have been designed and doctored to suit the needs of the film.
Veteran Marine Corp Driver, who is usually seen in award-contenders like Marriage Story or Silence or devouring dialogue-heavy characters in indie darlings like Paterson or Frances Ha, finally gets to use his prior skills in 65, where he spends much of his time running, gunning, and panting through dino-infested landscapes with Ariana Greenblatt's Koa closely following; however, while the actor can walk away from this different type of venture with his head held high
65 isn't offensive, but it's a rather forgettable adaptation of a narrative that might have been a crisp and exciting genre highlight had the stars aligned. It's the kind of high-concept banal product you're more likely to watch on a streaming service than on the big screen in this day and age.
Sony had it's West Coast test audience watch "65" less than two weeks ago. The kicker is that two separate screenings of the film were occurring at the same time in different theatres.
We'll never know which version of the action film starring Adam Driver made it to theatres, but critics aren't kind.
Currently, it has a Metacritic score of 41 and a Rotten Tomatoes score of 31%. The box office has also essentially given up on it. Its previews on Thursday were a huge flop. According to the report, the projected cost is roughly $91 million. Yikes.
There aren't many "65" ratings available online. Rotten Tomatoes only managed to score 29/100. Press screenings were reportedly quite small, with just New York and Los Angeles trades invited.
65
2023, PG-13, 93 min. Directed by Scott Beck, and Bryan Woods. Starring Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman, and Nika King.
Mix in some found-family reluctance and a little bit of space travel and dinosaur adventure for good measure. 65 is the newest high-budget thriller from A Quiet Place authors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.
Interstellar pilot Mills (Driver) is pressured by his partner (King) to go on a two-year exploratory trip in order to earn enough money to rescue his dying daughter 65,000,000 years ago on a fictitious planet in a gaseous galaxy (Coleman). Don't enquire as to the origin of these people, how they survived the latter years of the Cretaceous or the nature of the girl's ailment. In fact, it's recommended that you don't analyze this high-concept blockbuster too closely. In any case, the film spends just around ten minutes on the bare bones exposition before Mills' spaceship crash lands on Earth due to an unexpected meteor shower. What came before is ancient history.
The shipwrecked shuttle mysteriously, and again, don't ask questions, carried rows of cryogenically frozen people. Mills gives up hope, certain that they are all dead, but then he finds out that a girl called Koa (Greenblatt) managed to survive the fall. None of them share a common language, yet he speaks a suitable kind of contemporary English, while she does not. Did I forget to bring up dinosaurs?
65 is, at its heart and soul, a visual effects popcorn movie. Even while moving at great speeds, the pterosaurs and T-rexes seem genuine. A rechargeable gun that can paralyze velociraptors and other futuristic space weaponry like olive-sized bombs make for exciting scenes reminiscent of the Predator series. This PG-13 action film is entertaining in spurts, making it perfect for sporadic watching once it becomes available on a streaming service.
65 has had a difficult time getting off the ground due to months of delays caused by its distributor, Sony Pictures Releasing. There's never enough of any of the genres, and there are a lot of them (science fiction, horror, drama). Many technological components fail to ever agree, therefore the tone veers between inquisitive and treacherous, which may serve as a comparison between the nine-year-old Koa and the jaded veteran Mills. The soundtrack, composed by Chris Bacon (A&E's Bates Motel), is very much in the cinematic orchestral style, yet the on-screen action is seldom in sync with the speed or the tone of the music. The same might be said of Salvatore Totino's gorgeous yet mismatched cinematography (Space Jam: A New Legacy, Bird Box).
Driver, on the other hand, is an expert showman. The hero of Marriage Story and the Star Wars sequel trilogy portrays a surrogate father with emotional ease, soothing his stand-in daughter and believably crying in pain when she is in danger, all without the aid of a fitting astronaut outfit that clings to his bones. When paired with the two-time Oscar nominee, Greenblatt (Love and Monsters) holds her own.
Don't go into 65 expecting a mashup of Star Wars and Jurassic Park. 65 has just the proper amount of energy to survive its relatively short playtime, yet lacking in both outer space and dinosaur mayhem to be called an interplanetary expedition. Well, if only it were true of dinosaurs as well.
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