65

Peter McGinn 11/16/2023 9:01:33 AM 8.4

This film starts out with an odd premise. Putting a twist on the Planet of the Apes plot, instead of earth astronauts ending up in the past or future of this planet, the Earth is visited by space travelers from a different planet in the distant prehistoric past. (The title is not a suggested rating for reviewers, but rather how many million years ago the story takes place.) So it is odd to contemplate that the Adam Driver character speaks Engish just so we can understand him, while his co-star speaks some other language. How different the story would have been if we understood her (Koa) and not him! But I digress. So this turns into another Jurassic Park without the huge body count or those magic sighing moments of viewing a herd of docile grazing Brontosauruses or triceratops. Instead the dinosaurs start out as killing threats and remain so throughout. I suppose this is also a good reason to show the movie on a streaming service rather than on a large theater screen. That sort of access might have tilted the movie away from sci-if thriller and towards mere horror. I had this weird and unrealized vision of them showing some sign of these alien visitors millions of years later along with other fossil remains, but perhaps fortunately perhaps, nothing like that developed.

The Movie Mob 3/15/2023 4:41:33 AM 8.4

**65 had so much potential but couldn’t overcome its weird story restrictions.** 65 is not the horrible movie many recited claim it to be. It’s a decent sci-fi survival thriller with a handful of fun, suspenseful sequences but a slower pace and some strange story decisions kept the film from being the stand-out it had the potential to be. Two major writing choices held the movie back: *SPOILERS AHEAD* 1. Killing every other person on board the ship leaving only the pilot and a nine-year-old girl to survive the dangers of prehistoric Earth minimized the threat and tension of the film. The audience reasonably assumes these two characters will survive at least to the end of the film and prevents the dangers from having any real bite (literally). Allowing for more survivors would have given more characters to fall prey to the terrors around them and raised the tension and the pace of the film. 2. Why did the writers choose to make the only two characters of the film speak two different languages? It reduced the dialogue to clunky and rudimentary exchanges that were annoying and mostly irrelevant. Having the young girl in shock and not speak at the beginning but slowly say more and more as she trusts the pilot would have been a better way to show development. 65 wasn’t a great or even a good movie, but it wasn’t bad either. I wasn’t disappointed with seeing it once on $5 Tuesday at the theater. It could have been epic, but a limiting screenplay and a lack of on-screen action prevented 65 from being anything better than decent.

Nathan 5/15/2023 1:20:09 PM 8.4

Underneath poor pacing and a half-baked plot, there is a good film that, unfortunately, 65 never fully realizes. From the start of the film, the pacing was dreadful. The introduction of our character, Mills, and the set-up to his story were rushed and for no reason, as the movie was under an hour and thirty minutes long. This time that should have been used for character development and motivation setup was fast-forwarded in order to get to the action on Earth. This section is critical to the audience's ability to relate to Mills, and unfortunately we never get to see it come to fruition. Once we get to Earth, things start to even out as the story progresses. The world they built was breathtaking, and the visuals were stellar. The action set pieces were nothing too impressive, but they did the job and had me thoroughly entertained. But, similarly to the introduction, this section lacks heart. 65 tries to be more than just a dinosaur action flick, and attempts to develop an intimate relationship between Mills and Koa just don’t work. I think the decision to make them speak different languages really took away from their development. It always felt awkward, which is a missed opportunity for what they could have been. Despite my story complaints, this movie was just entertaining. There were some pretty decent action scenes, Adam Driver was fantastic as always, and the overall concept was pretty unique. I loved the idea of this not being a time travel film, especially with that mixed with the extinction event of the dinosaurs. In the end, this film is not good, but it isn’t as bad as many would have you believe. Score: 56% Verdict: Decent