’65’ Review
Stars: Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman, Nika King, Brian Dare | Written and Directed by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Adam Driver is undoubtedly one of the most talented actors working today, perhaps even the most talented, yet all that talent can’t help save 65 from being one of the dullest films in recent years.
In what feels like a straight-to-streaming film, Adam Driver plays a space explorer (Mills) that crash lands on an unknown planet. We quickly discover he’s actually stranded on Earth, 65 million years ago, something the film expects to show us as some big shock reveal, maybe it would work if it wasn’t plastered all over the marketing for the film. With only one chance at rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) must make their way across the unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures. The only issue with this is that these prehistoric creatures are nothing we haven’t seen before. The film does nothing new or even remotely exciting with its dinosaur villains. We have seen dinosaurs on our screens for so long now that most of the time we know what to expect. The film teases its T-Rex reveal as if Jurassic Park never existed, as if we don’t know the thunderous creature making its way to the characters is a t-Rex, the film expects to shock us with these reveals but it never works. We all know what’s coming around the corner, we have all seen it before, and when it does come it’s an even bigger letdown than you can imagine.
When the dinosaurs do come, the letdown comes in the action of fighting the creatures. There’s no tension, no suspense in any of the action sequences, they only last a few minutes and a few shots from Mills gun before they’re over. When you go for a sci-fi meets dinosaur action-adventure film, you expect some action and some adventure, here there is none. There is no creative use of the dinosaurs or the man from another planet with an arsenal of science fiction gadgets, and there is nothing in terms of story that makes up for the lack of inventive or fun action. Action works best when there is a story within the action and there are creative and unique ways of fighting the enemy, none of that shows up here. Every action scene is generic and ends up becoming another boring action film. Between the action, the film tries to give Adam Driver’s character a back story involving his daughter, but at no point in the film did I feel like it was natural, it always felt like it was being forced on me and that made me care less and less about it, and made me even more bored than the so called action was making me.
In the end, 65 is a massive disappointment. It sounded like it had everything you would need for a fun action-adventure film, the premise sounds like there could be so much creativity and fun in the action but there isn’t an ounce. 65 is not the worst film ever made, nothing about the directing or acting itself is terrible, the issue the film has is how dull and uninteresting it is. I imagine this is the equivalent of being set up on a date with someone who sounds like a load of fun and looks great on paper only to find yourself getting catfished.
* 1/5
65 is in cinemas now.