A One Mann’s Movies review of “65” (2023).
It’s been a while since I’ve felt the need to have a good old rant about a film. But “65” fulfils that need. It’s written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. They were the guys behind “A Quiet Place” which WAS an intelligent piece of work. Great characters. Great plot. Wonderful post-apocalyptic world-building. So I find it utterly unforgivable that this glossy piece of cinema is so dumb and stupid. It was so bad that I felt my brain cells leeching out of my skull as I watched it.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
Space pilot Mills (Adam Driver) reluctantly leaves his wife Alya (Nika King) and sick child Nevine (Chloe Coleman) on their home planet of Somaris. That’s because he has taken a lucrative two-year job that will give the family the money they need to treat their daughter. The spacecraft is transporting passengers in cryo-chambers. But a disaster befalls the mission and the ship crash-lands on a ‘mysterious planet’ populated by aggressive dinosaurs. Only Mills and one of the frozen popsicle children, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), survive. We follow them as they try, against all odds, to get back home.
Certification:
UK: 12; US: PG-13. (From the BBFC: “Moderate threat, injury detail, fantasy violence”).
Talent:
Starring: Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Nika King, Chloe Coleman.
Directed by: Scott Beck & Bryan Woods.
Written by: Scott Beck & Bryan Woods.
Twitter Handle: #65Movie.
Mills and Koa, in search of Yoda on Dagobah. (Source: Colombia Pictures).
“65″ Review:
Positives:
- There are only 4 people in the whole cast, which if nothing else screams LOCKDOWN MOVIE. (And indeed it was filmed in the first winter of Covid lockdown). But all the actors turn in good performances. Adam Driver is obviously a class act and he stomps around here in action-man mode. Outside of Star Wars, we’ve not really seen him do much of that before, so that’s refreshing. And rising star Ariana Greenblatt makes for a petulant teen presence on screen. You might recognize her as the young Gamora in “Avengers: Infinity War“. But she’s been in quite a lot of other stuff too, and is a “one to watch”. Interestingly, Chloe Coleman is having a busy month in the cinemas. She plays the sick Nevine here. But she is also the daughter of Chris Pine’s character in “Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves“. She makes a strong impression in both films.
- The concept of the film is good. It provides a new vehicle for dinosaurs on the big screen, outside of the ‘done to death’ “Jurassic World” flicks.
- There is a nice (actually, quite disgusting) mouth-bug that was reminiscent of the ear-things from “Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan“.
- Some of the artistic space shots, and the visual effects used for the spaceship in the meteorite storm, are well done (even though, once again, we get the sounds of crashing in a vacuum! #physics)
Negatives:
- I REALLY took offence to this film insulting my intelligence. I don’t mind suspending my disbelief a bit for a sci-fi actioner. But this had SO much nonsense in it that I thought the screenwriters were really taking the piss.
- Firstly, the film seems to be in two-minds as to whether to make it a big surprise, or not, that they have crash-landed on earth. It’s OBVIOUS from the trailer that this is prehistoric earth. Indeed, in the nearly 20 minute pre-title sequence, you see enough of the landscape and the dinosaur inhabitants to know that this is prehistoric earth. They even mention Earth on the poster! Yet the titles come up portentiously…. “65” …. “million years ago a visitor crash landed on” ….. <cue big mental drumroll> …. “Earth“. Yes, yes, yes, we already got that! It is the most ridiculous piece of mansplaining. It’s almost as it the writers had a separate draft with a “Planet of the Apes” style reveal. “Shall we do Script A, or Script B?”. “Oh, F***-it, let’s just mash it all together!”
- The crash landing. This is a spacecraft that comes out of orbit, crashes into a mountain, BREAKS INTO TWO PARTS, with the cockpit half breaking apart on impact to dump kit, cryo-chambers and bodies all over the place. And yet we are supposed to believe that Mills just unstraps his seat-belt and walks out of the mess without a scratch?!
- Miles is as indestructible as an Avenger. During the course of the film, the poor guy gets washed in acid, dropped from a great height, skewered, crushed by rocks, drowned in quicksand, dragged off by a fecking big dinosaur and at one point has a smaller dinosaur – I’m not making this up – munching multiple times on his arm like some huge pitbull-terrier. And yet, here he comes again, slinging Koa over his just-dislocated shoulder and running off through the forest. It’s ludicrous.
- A key problem here is that there are just the two of them on the planet. You can be confident – at least for the early part of the film – that there is no way either Mills or Koa are going to get bumped off. What makes “Jurassic Park” etc so entertaining is wondering who and how some of the ensemble are going to get consumed! So why didn’t the screenwriters allow more of the frozen-popsicles to survive? They could have been unpleasantly munched on as cannon fodder in the first part of the movie. But no: where is a lawyer sat on a toilet when you need him?
- The approach by which the escape happens is jaw-droppingly unbelievable. As further chat would be a spoiler, see my “Note 1” in the “Spoiler” section below the trailer.
- WORST OF ALL, this movie contains one of the biggest coincidences in movie history. I thought “No, surely not”. I then tried desperately to think of some sort of ’cause and effect’ rationale. But to no avail. It really is that stupid. Again, to avoid spoilers, see my “Note 2” in the “Spoiler” section below the trailer.
- As a Geophysicist, I took exception to a final scene. We fade from prehistoric times to a modern-day city where the geological landscape in the background changed not one iota!
Summary Thoughts on “65”
It’s that time of year, post Oscars, where the studios like to flush their cisterns and push some of the turd-movies down the pipe to clear things out before the summer. And, for me, this was one of those turds. Which was a shame, since this was one that I was genuinely looking forward to seeing. But I thought it was atrocious, and an utter waste of a talented cast.
By the way, one thing I AM grateful for is that a premonition I had did not come to pass. After watching the trailer I was afraid that, at the end of the movie, we would discover that the pilot’s name was actually “Adam” and that the young teen (Greenblatt was 13 when this movie was filmed) was going to be called “Eve”. Such that things were set to get morally icky. #DodgedBullet.
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Trailer for “65”
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHXejJq5vr0 .
Spoiler Section:
Don’t read past this point if you’ve not seen the movie.
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NO, SERIOUSLY!
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So, here are some of the most irritating elements, for me, of the movie’s finale:
Note 1: The spaceship has an “escape craft” perched on a mountain top that our intrepid, and indestructible, duo are trying to reach. This “escape craft” is inexplicably undamaged. That’s even when it gets shoved off the mountain by a T-Rex and crashes to the ground. Driver’s character even seems to walk out of the broken craft – no airlocks or anything you understand! After all of this, they climb back into their broken ship and launch off into space again. As if recognising that this is all utterly unbelievable, the writers add in a computer voice at one point saying “Repair mode activated”! No army of droids with welding torches is ever visible!
By the way, its not clear WHY they would have had to launch into orbit in the first place. (Other than, of course, to avoid the obvious impending cosmic-snowball that’s approaching). Surely if a rescue ship was coming, the rescue ship would have a shuttle to come down and pick them up?!
Note 2: The coincidence that the ship crash lands on earth just 2 days before a planet-killing meteorite hits the planet is just nuts! The odds, just taking the time from then to the modern day is 11,862,500,000 : 1! I hope Mills did the lottery when he got home. I tried to reason that Mills’s ship had somehow CAUSED the meteorite to hit earth. But that is equally ludicrous. The object that created the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed most of the life on the planet, including the dinosaurs, was estimated to be about 15 km across and travelling at huge speeds. (Momentum = Mass x Velocity). Mills’ ship didn’t crash into this main body. But even if it had (like NASA’s recent incredible Dart mission) the effect on such a massive object would have been negligible. Nope. It’s just supposed to be coincidence. And I let out another big sigh.
