65 Movie Review More Family Drama Than Wild Dinosaur Adventure
Based on the trailer alone, I entered 65 thinking it was going to be an epic time travel story with dinosaurs as the main antagonist. It ends up being a fairly traditional and empty adventure aimed at family rather than giant space lizards, which is a shame.
The film begins 65 million years ago on Solaris, an Earth-like planet. Even if we only see beaches, people look like people. Mills (Adam Driver) is a father who left his wife and daughter for two years for a special project that will make him extra money: pay for his sick daughter's hospital bills. We don't know what the specific project is, but it involves flying to another planet in a spaceship full of Mills Creopods. During the flight, his spaceship collides with an asteroid and crashes on an unknown planet (Earth). Mills is the sole survivor until he discovers his nine-year-old daughter, Koa (Arianna Greenblatt), a creopod survivor. He doesn't speak English, his parents are dead and he has to find the other half of his spaceship, which is an escape pod. So here's your story.
What follows is a pretty standard adventure movie where Mills and Koa try to escape Earth before an asteroid hits the planet and wipes out the dinosaurs. Along the way, Koa will learn to trust Mills. Mills must learn to open her heart to Koa; And the couple must avoid dinosaurs and dangerous areas. The plot is thin and ultimately nothing more than a logline. There is no surprise storyline or surprise middle-end. It tells you what it is and delivers exactly that.
The movie had a lot of family drama to keep me interested. I was expecting a brilliant sci-fi action movie; I have very few. 65 is definitely aimed at a broader audience: those who want cute childhood stories (like watching Mills try to explain things to a struggling charlatan); those who need heartbreaking family stories (like Mills finally accepting Kwan and giving him a big hug); There's even a story for those looking for something with a cute animal (when Koa decides to risk everything to save a baby dinosaur from a tar pit). One can only wonder if the studio meddled with Scott Beck and Brian Woods writing and directing to make sure everyone got something out of the 90-minute running time. It was the pair's first directing experience at a major studio, with previous directing projects including low-budget horror films like Ghost and Nightlight, and aside from some very dark scenes, 65 was expertly shot.
Driver and Greenblatt did a great job in their roles. Other people in the film were Mills' daughter and wife. The video shows the girl through a hologram and the woman's name is not even mentioned in the film. It was interesting to see so few actors in the film as Driver was really in charge of the film. Honestly, I don't know if I have the charisma to handle this load. There was nothing special about his performance. no rude jokes; There is no special chemistry with Greenblatt. On the other hand, Mills' character is also not well developed. I never thought about her or her family or her struggle to get home. We spent less than two minutes with him and his family before he was sent to work; I tried to put the crashed spaceship back together. It's like all the interesting character development has been cut out, leaving us with too much character to hold on to. Luckily, Greenblatt was charming enough to carry most of the film, even if his character mostly uttered obscenities.
The dinosaurs in the movie are a little better, but something about them feels weird. Anyone who grew up on a constant diet from the Jurassic Park movies has a pretty good idea of how dinosaurs looked and behaved in the movies. Weirdly, the dinosaurs in this film moved freely, almost crawling, which made them feel like aliens. It's an odd choice given the existence of dinosaurs on Earth. However, the CGI was clear and looked good. Luckily, realistic looking CGI is all you need to have some fun at times. Not getting the right answer doesn't mean your star can do their primary job.
I think I had high hopes for 65. Logically, you'd have to think of it as a bigger, more stretched film to compete with Scream VI at the box office. Instead, you're offered something that would be great if you watched it on a home streaming service.
