'65' -Movie Review

 

Starring Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt, 65 is a 2023 American science fiction action thriller film written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. In the movie, a pilot battles to survive in the perilous prehistoric environment after landing on an unknown planet that turns out to be Earth during the Cretaceous period. On March 10, 2023, 65 was released in the US, and critics had varied opinions of the movie.

On the planet Solaris 65 million years ago, pilot Mills persuades his wife Alya that he should embark on a two-year space mission in order to raise money for their daughter Nevine's medical care. But while returning to Somaris, he collides with Earth during the Cretaceous era. He discovers that his passengers have been slaughtered, his shipwrecked and split in half, and he considers taking his own life until he meets a lone survivor, a young girl named Koa. Although Mills resolves to look after Koa, the two have trouble talking because of their different languages.

Later, Mills learns that the ship's other half has an operational escape shuttle, and she sends a distress signal to call for help. Although he makes up the fact that Koa's parents are still alive in order to persuade her to accompany him, Mills informs Koa they are headed to the mountain where the shuttle needed to leave the planet is. They become closer as they travel the world, and Mills defends Koa from the dinosaurs who try to harm them.

Koa watches a number of video messages delivered by Nevine, who passed away due to her illness halfway through Mills' expedition, as they spend the night close to a cave entrance. Before running into the cave, the two fight off a huge theropod attack. They are split apart by a rockfall and must survive on their own before coming back together. Mills also learns that a devastating extinction event would occur on Earth in less than 12 hours as a result of an asteroid collision that forced their ship to crash.

When the two go to the ship, Koa is upset to learn that Mills lied to her. Koa is told by Mills about losing Nevine, and she pledges to look out for her. The two board the escape shuttle, when they learn that help, is on the way, but the asteroid's debris causes it to crash into a mountain. Mills and Koa successfully repel two huge Tyrannosaurus Rex, but before they can kill the injured monster with a Geyser blast, it turns on them. As the asteroid collides with Earth, the two hastily return to the ship and launch themselves off the planet in search of help.

Many shots of the Earth's landscape are shown as the credits begin to roll, spanning the years from the asteroid impact's aftermath to the dawn of modern civilization. With no forward motion, 65 manages to become as lost as its characters as they ramble around tunnels, meadows, and woodlands. There are sporadic hints of the joy that could have been had, and despite having virtually little to work with, Adam Driver never lets up. The issue is that it is unable to make up for a lackluster experience that is further undermined by subpar directing, script, effects, and everything else a movie requires to stay together.

No matter how much Driver obediently rolls around, the effects are extremely unconvincing from the first time Mills comes into contact with one of his few dinosaur enemies as he ventures outside to get his bearings. The movie will occasionally use darkness as a cover to get past this ongoing issue, but it only works so well. The longer 65 drags on, the more obvious it becomes that it lacks even the smallest hint of a creative vision.

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