“65” Review: A Fossil Of A Film That Should Remain Buried

Whether you were beholding the wonder of practical animatronics in 1993 or giddy with excitement from seeing a mighty Mosasaurus ruin someone’s day, there’s a primal part of us that is simply drawn to giant lizard monsters of the past. Largely due to Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” series and the latter “Jurassic World” films. So the idea of a time-travelling Adam Driver being stranded on Earth 65 million years during the Cretaceous Period sounds like it would be a ton of fun. In theory.

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Adams of “A Quiet Place” fame, the film is set to be a rather dinosaur-heavy film with a small cast and a large emphasis on their journey of survival. So will “65” rekindle our sense of awe and terror of everyone’s favourite type of animal to shape into nuggets? Or will it prove to move the premise one step closer to extinction? Let’s find out!

The film’s plot is simple: Adam Driver’s Mills is stranded on planet Earth with a young girl named Koa. It is indeed the year 65 million B.C. but both Mills and Koa are from an advanced human civilisation. None of that is important though because the only thing that matters is both of them getting on an escape ship and heading back to their homeworld before the extinction event that kills the dinosaurs happens. There is nowhere to hide with “65”. The whole film rests on atmosphere, pacing and these two characters alone. Unfortunately, even with its relatively straightforward story, the film manages to feel utterly aimless.

In survival thrillers, there’s normally a sense of escalation that builds with the characters’ development. As they become more aware of the danger of their situation, the film is supposed to lull us into a false sense of security before it shakes us with something truly shocking. All while the threat is still proportionate to where our characters are in the plot. “65” is about as concerned about pacing as a Velociraptor is about empathy. The film sees our main two characters trudging along before being assaulted by a random assortment of dinosaurs, then back on their journey before yet another setback comes along. Rinse and repeat.

There’s no rhyme or reason to it. They don’t grow or learn anything from each encounter nor do they reveal anything meaningful about themselves. It’s like watching a possum react violently when poked in the nose before doing it again. It certainly doesn’t help that every 5 minutes, the audience is treated to a jarring jumpscare. When the arrival of several carnivorous predators is accompanied by the same auditory assault as a broken branch or belching geiser, the tension of every scene falls flat. “A Quiet Place” understood the importance of compounding terror with its deadly game of cat-and-mouse, human error and environmental perils. Then when the sound finally breaks the silence, there is the dread before all hell descends on our heroes. “65” is as subtle as a blown balloon pooting across the room.

Then there’s the score. The hallmark of an amazing film is when the score stays with you long after the film ends. Composers like Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore, John Williams and Jóhann Jóhannsson, though unseen, have left an indelible mark on the audience with their sonic complexity. There is another name we’ll commit memory but for all the wrong reasons: Chris Bacon. If you need to telegraph moments of levity this loudly with a soundtrack that sounds like it should be followed by canned laughter, then someone is not doing their job. The jumpscares here…oh how we loathe them! They are as generic as they as they are grating. 

The performances in the film border on parody at times. Adam Driver is a talented actor. His credentials in films like “A Marriage Story”, “BlacKKKlansman” and “Silence” have more than proven that. Here, however, he has all the charisma of an extra in an action film and delivers with all the passion of a man trying to pay off the mortgage on his second house. Even when Driver attempts to inject some dramatic weight into his scenes, he presents himself to be as stoic and inarticulate as granite. He only seems to have three modes throughout the film: injured, worried and sad. Ariana Greenblatt’s Koa is a poor man’s Ellie from “The Last of Us” and solely exists to be the obligatory emotional core of the film. A function that is as cynical as it is uninspired. So when the film inevitably shoves its father-daughter sentimentality in our faces, it feels unearned and contrived.

The only mildly entertaining feature of this hour-and-a-half slog through prehistoric Earth is the amusement park monsters that inhabit the world. They growl, they chase and they die. There is no majestic Brachiosaurus or earth-shaking T-Rex here. Only cheap knock-offs of what we assume are Velociraptors and oversized Komodo Dragons. While we wouldn’t necessarily say that the CGI creatures are stunningly bad, we wouldn’t exactly call any of them memorable either. Which is arguably worse. Beyond their size and the shape of their snouts, there is nothing particularly distinctive about their appearances. This is kind of a big deal when the best thing going for your film is the dinosaurs!

Against all odds, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ “65” is a failure of titanic proportions. None of the creativity and forethought found in the duo’s landmark film is present here. Any sense of suspense or tension in the film is quickly undercut by a violin-sting-happy composer and half-hearted performances by otherwise capable actors. Not even the inner child in us can find comfort in the thrill of seeing extinct predators on-screen again. We were honestly hoping that “65” could recapture the magic that the “Jurassic World” films tried so hard to elicit. Sadly, it only continues to endanger the relevance that this period of history holds in cinema.

For those interested in checking out “65”, you can watch it at theatres near you!