65
Starring Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt
Rated M
3.5/5
65 should be a fulfilling monster adventure B-movie, but it’s less exciting than an action-horror about dinosaurs should be.
Mills (Adam Driver), a spaceship captain, crash-lands on Earth 65 million years in the past.
If Jung_e from last week is a better live-action Ghost in the Shell, then 65 is a better After Earth. Both After Earth and 65 are about crash-landing on a hostile Earth and a perilous journey to a distant means of escape.
But while 65 has an engaging plot, it fails to impress with its action or horror.
Driver plays a stoic hero with dashes of vulnerability and humour, and has a touching dynamic with Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), a young survivor from the crash (although Koa’s lack of English is a little tedious). Mills and Koa bond in hardship and come to rely on each other, and Mills engages with her through memories of his daughter. Several plot-points return in satisfying ways later on, and escaping the asteroid that wipes out the dinosaurs (I don’t think that’s a spoiler; asteroids set the plot in motion, and what would you expect from a movie set 65 million years ago?) is a powerful dramatic motivator.
65 has some very effective scenes of rising dread, but much of the action is static and unmemorable. The film has some cool creature designs, but the visuals have the brown-and-grey colour palette of modern video games. The third act has a revelation about Mills’ past that falls flat, and some viewers will be disappointed that 65 never offers any insight into how the characters are thrown back in time. The film also has some abrupt editing that feels more cut for TV than cinema.
Never boring but not quite thrilling either, 65 is playing in most Victorian cinemas.
– Seth Lukas Hynes
