65 (2023) Movie Review
Director: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Cast: Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt
Cinematography: Salvatore Totino
Music: Chris Bacon
Synopsis:
After a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth — 65 million years ago. With only one chance at a rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa, must cross an unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures.
65 (2023) Movie Review:
The world of cinema had a technical reset moment when Steven Spielberg showed us that even dinosaurs with a story given to them could be brought alive on the big screen. His Jurassic Park series, followed by Jurassic World movies, have set and become the benchmark of dinosaur content across the globe.
Somebody now decided to bring in Adam Driver and make him fight the giant Lizard only to grill one in the end like it’s easy has made the Spielberg fan in us cringe.
Written by the duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, 65 is an idea that gives room for multiple possibilities and numerous storylines. It takes us 65 Million years back on Earth when two people from a very advanced planet fell from the sky, and are stranded between the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period.
This could venture into the complexities of space and time and the landscape, or how the man has now no means but to develop something on this new planet, or how he forms a bond with this young partner as they are fighting to survive.
But 65 never bothers to start those parallel stories. It is more invested in speeding up to tell a tale that is predictable. It makes you wait for a twist that might make this film unique.
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Unfortunately, it never does. Dinosaurs keep attacking, weird-looking insects make all the attempts to bite, and the lead characters are running from point A to B, saving themselves with the most predictable trajectories.
Whatever you see on the screen isn’t bad or unbearable, but nothing is like something you have never seen before. It is tried and tested formula, and to add more dismay, the makers don’t even use the characters to raise human conflicts in this wilderness.
There is a father of a dead teen daughter, a girl clueless that her parents died in the same crash that she survived; there is so much to explore when two people with tragic pasts come together. But the movie chooses to speed up so fast that it is least bothered about any catharsis. The short runtime kills it even more.
Adam Driver’s conviction at 65 is worth mentioning. The actor is convinced that he is out there to kick-start a franchise, so he acts well and becomes the best part of the movie. He is clueless, and so are we.
You deserve better, Adam. Ariana Greenblatt is a very natural performer because she doesn’t even have dialogues, but she makes us feel her pain in this loosely written screenplay, and that is worth appreciating. The actor can do wonders if given a more lucrative and indulging character.
The idea of hiding the giant monster and only revealing bits and pieces of it to surprise the audience by unraveling the majestic beast in the end only works if there is enough time involved in first setting up the beast and second at least giving him an entire sequence with full visibility with the protagonist.
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65 does neither, and the majestic beast ends up being just another animal and not the mighty dinosaur who could end Adam’s life in a small size bite. Directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods do no good to redeem their product that has dulled in the first 30 minutes.
Why do the dinosaurs look like they were designed for a fantasy show? Barring the giant beast, all the other dinosaurs never look real. Steven Spielberg made some in the last century and they made us read them even when we knew they weren’t real.
If technology can’t even ace half of his brilliance decades later, what exactly is the use of all that budget? Christopher Nolan has done a brilliant job of explaining to the world how space is a vacuum and sound cannot travel through it. Remember how
Interstellar went all silent when the scene shifted outside the spaceship. 65, which is marketed as Sci-fi, forgets every detail, and we hear the sound of a moving spaceship in a top-angle shot in space. The audience is becoming more competent, you guys. The music is average and even more than required in some places.
Verdict: 65 (2023) Movie Review
Adam Driver tries to make so much sense of a movie with enough to be a strong franchise but decides to rush with a predictable story without trying to branch out. Adam deserves better. We deserve better!
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