With no less than six films in the ‘Jurassic Park’ universe, all of which bring back the dinosaurs from 65 million years ago to the present day comes this original feature which does the opposite – sending a man to Earth during the Cretaceous Period.
Adam Driver is that man, an astronaut named Mills from another planet, tasked with transporting a group of cryogenically-frozen people from point A to point B, a journey that is going to take a couple of years. Back home he has a young child who has an illness and a wife, but he has to make this trip as it pays three times the normal wage, money much needed by the family. So, off he goes, the trip going south some fifteen minutes into the film, the spacecraft that he is piloting crash-landing on an unknown planet. Some twenty minutes in we get the title card ’65’, and the movie properly begins.
After discovering that most of the cargo is either killed or missing, Mills sets initially sends a distress signal telling those not to bother to come to look for him – after all, he has no idea which planet he has crashed on. Then he discovers that they is another survivor; nine-year-old Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) who is from the Northern Territory of the planet they’ve come from and thus, doesn’t speak any English. They soon discover that an escape ship is located 15km away, their way off the planet. The bad news is that herds of nasty creatures – dinosaurs, no less – stand between them and their way outta there.
Filmed back in late 2020 and early 2021 – smack in the middle of the Covid pandemic, 65 has certainly taken its time making its way to the screen. After lengthy delays and hardly any press screenings, the film lands with small fanfare, save for repeated cinema ads and sporadic billboards. We thought the worse but actually, I had a good time with the movie.
It’s a decent premise, and, after a slow start where filmmakers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods set the scene, we are briskly taken through a series of action sequences where the dinosaurs start to present themselves. Running at 95 minutes, it does feel a lot longer than that, but there’s just about enough to keep us interested for the duration. A stand-out moment is a claustrophobic caving incident around halfway in, though this is possibly the only scene that had us shifting toward the end of our seats. The rest is standard dino-action far, all of which we’ve seen before. There’s hardly any tension but is certainly far from boring.
Driver pretty much carries the film on his own, but the talented Greenblatt, who is largely silent throughout, puts on a solid turn as the Newt-esque Koa. They are the only two people in the film, save for a couple of other very small parts, most fleeting or off-screen. A far-fetched, convenient plot point adding a ‘race against time’ that is revealed towards the end of the film doesn’t quite sit right but I was expecting so much less than what was delivered.
In all, 65 is a tightly-paced, action-packed sci-fi thriller that, if nothing else, doesn’t outstay its welcome.
65 is released in cinemas from 10th March 2023.
65
Summary
A flawed but ultimately enjoyable sci-fi action thriller with a great central performance by Driver.
