Way better than Jurassic World Dominion for sure. 65 doesn't reinvent anything in the dinosaur blockbuster genre but it was fun and entertaining nonetheless. Some parts drag a lot, the story is extremely simple and it leaves a lot of questions unanswered (ex: Why were they on this mission? Why was a little girl on the mission? Why would they put people who don't even talk the same language together? Who are they, an advanced species or time-travelers? among other things...) and because they don't address these questions it creates plot holes and makes for lazy writing. It's by no means a cerebral journey but the action is thrilling, the special effects look great, I like the sci-fi technology and so many cool-looking dinosaurs. My favorite part was the cave in complete darkness.
Adam Driver isn't given a lot to work with but he was good as the stereotypical action hero. The backstory with his daughter was heartwarming even though some of the flashbacks were strangely placed. I have to say I was incredibly annoyed with Koa for the first half she was slowing the story and the humor parts with Mills ruined the mood a few times. But then they redeemed her around halfway through, making her usefull and less comedic. I was ok with her then and the relationship between the two is perhaps what gives 65 it's charm.
I recently saw the movie "65" and overall, I found it to be a pretty solid film. One of the highlights for me was the incredible dinosaur effects, which really brought the prehistoric world to life on the big screen. I also have to mention the excellent performance by Adam Driver, who has certainly made a name for himself in Star Wars and brought high expectations to this film. The portrayals of the prehistoric world were also really well done.
However, there were a few negatives as well. One thing that stood out was the lack of background information on the characters. I felt that more could have been done to explain their motivations and histories. Additionally, the movie was fairly predictable and didn't offer many surprises. Given the dangerous world these characters were living in, I expected more tension and unpredictability. Finally, while the relationship between the main character and the girls was intriguing, I didn't feel like it fully developed and lacked emotional depth.
All in all, "65" was a decent movie that was definitely worth seeing on the big screen. The dinosaur effects and Adam Driver's performance were standout elements, but the predictable plot and lack of character development held it back from being a truly great film.
Some movies require seatbelts when watching in 4DX and this is one of them. I left the movie with pretty much nothing on my mind. A pretty meh movie; nothing terrible, nothing spectacular. I don't think expectations were high, for me atleast, so I didn't find it disappointing. It didn't feel unique, like it was pieced together from other sci-fi shows and films. It's very minimalist, a smaller budget indie sci-fi, if you enjoyed Pedro pascal's 'Prospect' or a more recent film 'Vesper', not as good as either but it's in the same ball park. You're just following the lead characters in a dystopian future, albeit this was 65 million years in the past. Reminded me of the series 'Terra Nova' in that regard. Sci-fi part isn't explored deeply but it was a pretty cool concept, it left a little room for interpretation so I thought of Mills and Koa being the first humans who landed on earth and dna somehow survived; it's a flawed idea but helped me enjoy it more. Hence my biggest criticism would be so much more could've been done with the movies premise. If you don't enjoy movies with only one or two characters conversing then don't bother watching this; even though Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt did a great job carrying the movie. There was only so much they could do. I still enjoyed watching it, just nothing memorable.
The season finale of "The Last of Us" left me utterly confused. Why were the roles of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey suddenly recast with Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt? Why does Ellie suddenly not speak English anymore? And why is Joel's daughter suddenly named Nevine and not Sarah? I didn't see the time travel plot to the age of the dinosaurs coming either.
Getting back to seriousness, "65" is a pretty boring movie that would have been a perfect fit for Netflix. Nothing is really all that bad, nothing is particularly good. Everything is extremely mediocre. You've probably forgotten most of the plot by the time the credits roll. Adam Driver is a fantastic actor and Ariana Greenblatt has been good elsewhere (for example in "Love and Monsters"), but neither get any material to work with here. From a technical standpoint, there's not much to complain about with "65." The special effects are solid, and the film is competently shot. However, the plot is very repetitive, so despite a runtime of only 90 minutes, I kept looking at my watch. If you are eager to see the film, you should wait until it is available on a streaming service.
Normally when a movie is this bad it has no budget and you want to cut it some slack but this film clearly had a higher budget than most films of this level of disappointment.
Presumably the script was filled with pictures of dinosaurs and Adam Driver just trusted the director to fill in the time with thrilling action sequences. I wonder how far into the production he got before he realised it was a turd.
What little story there is, is completely contrived, cliched, nonsensical and pointless. The emotional exchanges between the leads are futile because as a viewer you don't know if they even understand each other or maybe if the lazy writer is just going to decide that they magically understand each other in that moment. Driver’s character starts out being a sensitive dad who seems to communicate well enough with his daughter and yet he spends most of the film speaking in full sentences to someone who he knows can't understand.
The actions sequences are so inconsequential that I found myself fading out a couple of times then wondering how they got to where they are but not caring enough to go back.
It's mercifully short but unless you just love looking at Driver no matter what he's doing, you will be waiting for it to end before you get half way through (unfortunately I’m one of these film completionist types).
It is an incredibly nothing movie.
The entire set-up was so pointless I thought I missed something.
So they're on Earth, 65 million years ago. Adam Driver is a space man. There are no humans on Earth.
So you just KNOW that this movie is going to be some silly "first man" story and will lead to the advent of human life on Earth.
NOPE. It doesn't matter. At all. They escape Earth, The End. I guess we just evolved independently, even though there are other humans already out in space?
This aspect just kind of blew my mind. Just... why?
There is basically no story, there's no character, there isn't really much anything. I'd love to see a real copy of the script because I imagine it's like 5 pages.
It feels like a weirdly big budget adaptation of a forgotten mid-budget video game from like 2005.
I don't know how they talked Driver into this. I'm guessing they managed some trickery by only having to pay basically one real actor in the whole movie and everything else be CG, letting them spend a relatively large percentage of their budget on him.
I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, obviously, but it was just such a waste of time.
7/10
Good
OutLander meets
Jurassic Park
Though OutLander is
definitely the more awesome
Stronger kick ass movie
that will be remembered and talked about for decades to come.....,oh....
That being said I actually really
enjoyed this one a little bit of
a bumpy start couldn't quite
work out what the Hella
was going on I got a sense
of Buck Rogers,
planet of the Apes time portal thing going on at the beginning
(Plus trailers).
Then things were made aware
to us a bit left field and I
was like okay but because
of what was actually going
on I stuck with it and I'm
glad I did.
Is it a Marvel blockbuster
that Knocks it clean out the Ball Park, no absolutely not
(even though
we do have Gamora),
but I loved the vfx
they were tight, I loved
the exact* setting
the movie jumped emotions
a little (not quite sure
what they were going for)
but in this instance it worked
and I found it all rather
Sincere and heartfelt.
And that ending was
pretty frickin awesome
to be fair.
1H 32M well spent.
I will say one thing though
Man Mills Could Not
Catch A Break In This
Movie,
(Holy-Shit and I thought
I had a run of bad luck
often).
I respect a film that can pack its story into a tight 90 minutes. Unfortunately, that respect doesn't necessarily translate into a favorable review. Ultimately, 65 hangs its hat on a premise that probably worked better in the pitch session that it does on the screen. There's just no way to advertise this movie without revealing that its going to be Adam Driver versus dinosaurs, so all of the time spent before the dinosaurs show up is largely deflated of tension, as we know what's coming. It doesn't help that the opening scene is quite rough, delivering pure, uncut exposition in an attempt to create some emotional stakes. Now, the payoff for those poorly established emotional stakes are slightly more successful, but only just. The inciting incident is rough for a different reason, as budget constraints are apparent during the big crash landing sequence. In general, this movie suffers from an odd combination of high/low budget, giving the audience a sort of whiplash as we go from one to the other. The finale suffers from yet a third issue, as it just leans a bit too much into the fantastic, completely shattering suspension of disbelief in multiple respects the fact that the escape pod survived the crash, the fact that an escape pod can take off from in atmosphere, the fact that the escape pod is functional after falling off a mountain and being torn at and rolled by a T-Rex, and on top of the dinosaurs...the asteroid?!.
Now, despite all of that, the movie does have moments that shine, where you can tell that the creators accomplished exactly what they were going for. First, there's the simple sequence where Adam Driver sends a distress message out into space. That's the kind of scene that would have worked even in script form. Just solid writing. Another that comes to mind is the action sequence in the dark that leverages the hologram display tech. Just a fun idea that also doubles as a way to minimize budget. Unfortunately, those are about the only two that stuck out. To be clear, it's not that the rest of the movie is necessarily bad, just bland.
Review by TV WatcherBlockedParent2023-04-11T03:31:56Z
I’ll be one of the few voices in comments that will say this was a decent movie. It’s not perfect, by any means, but it is actually decent.
Adam Driver, whom I’m not a huge fan of, did a pretty good job in this movie. Why am I not a fan of his? Well, he’s not the greatest actor but, and this is more important, he killed Han Solo. That wrong can never be righted like an upside down escape pod.
I think the premise of this movie is fascinating to watch and ponder. It does leave a few holes to be filled, but you can use your imagination for this.
In all, this is actually good Science Fiction because while his presence is all fiction (or is it, could this have really happened?), some of the rest of the presence is fact and all good science fiction has some basis in science fact.
The idea that humans were on the earth 65 million years ago is an interesting one. One hole that’s left to the imagination is, “ok, then, was it the DNA brought by these people that seeded and then allowed evolution to eventually created earths human population?” It’s interesting to think about. It’s pretty far out there, but interesting anyway. In no way would I believe that Earth would have spawned human civilization identical in nearly every way as it’s other worldly travelers, so DNA contamination is the only logical conclusion.
I like the fact that there was a language barrier and I think they overcame it well. Greenblatt did a good enough job as the girl, no complaints there really.
The only part I find convenient, really, is that the upside down life pod was righted by the very Dino that he fought with earlier in the movie. A bit too convenient really. Let’s face it, once the pod got torn off the main ship, if the damage didn’t prevent it from ever running again I would be surprised - let alone magically getting righted just perfectly by Mr. Dino.
If I’m picking nits, then I’ll pick one with the fact that he was brought down to earth by the very asteroid that would soon - VERY soon - change it forever. A bit trite, but I get why it is an important part of the story.
The Dino’s were well done, in fact all the special effects, particularly the opening credits where they show this mind blowing view of the cosmos is breathtakingly stunning.
If you are a fan of science fiction I think this is worth the pretty light 90 minute run time (compared to many 2 or 3 hour movies that are far worse). I still find myself pondering some of the aspects of the movie and “what-if” scenarios and I’m still thinking about the movie, it made a mark and that’s enough for me to say it’s worth the watch.
If science fiction isn’t your thing, this may not be either.