65 Review

65 is a high-concept sci-fi survival thriller that sees Adam Driver crash landing on Earth 65 million years ago.

Mills (Driver) is a pilot who is hired to lead a two-year expedition into deep space. When Mills’ ship encounters an asteroid field, he’s forced to crash land on an undiscovered planet. The only other survivor is a young girl called Koa (Ariana Greenblatt). The pair has to travel 15 kilometres through a hostile environment to find the escape pod.

65 had a simple premise: a space traveller ends up stuck on Earth during the Cretaceous Era. It sounded like a fun, barmy idea for a B-Movie. The trailers highlighted that the film was from the writers of A Quiet Place and combined with Adam Driver’s presence, it gave 65 a slight air of prestige. However, audiences that go in hoping to see Kylo Ren battle dinosaurs will probably leave disappointed.

65 was a standard thriller. It could have been set on an alien planet in the future or on a remote island in the present day and not much would have been different. They would have all been films where a couple of survivors must battle the elements and nature just as an impending disaster lingers. The film didn’t take advantage of the prehistoric setting.

65 was a hotchpotch of other sci-fi films. The most obvious was with the Will Smith vehicle After Earth. After Earth was a film no one wants to replicate because of its infamous reputation. Both films had a similar premise where a man and a young person from a space-faring civilisation crash-landed on a hostile Earth. The difference was After Earth was set in the future.

Other sci-fi films 65 pulled from included Passengers, Alien: Covenant, and Interstellar. Mills was awakened during the voyage because the ship ran into an asteroid belt which causes a disaster. Passengers and Alien: Covenant opened in a similar manner. Mills had video messages from his daughter which was like this scene in Interstellar. Mills also saw versions of his daughter, like Max in Mad Max: Fury Road. A final comparison would be with Prey since both films were sci-fi survival tales, but Prey only came out last year, I am willing to believe this was a coincidence.

One of the biggest mistakes 65 made was having prologue that showed Mills with his family. It explained why Mills was going on the mission and showed that Mills was from another planet. The film could have started with Mills in space, like Alien by having a bit of mystery to unravel. There could have been a question as to whether Mills was a time traveller or from an ancient civilisation. There could have also been a mystery involving Mills’ daughter’s messages which could have had a more emotional impact if audiences didn’t have prior information.

Whilst this review has been mostly negative, there were some positives. The film had two strong leads. Driver has proven himself many times as an actor and he was solid in 65, especially when his character was in a state of despair. Greenblatt showed herself to be a promising performer. There was a language barrier between her and Driver’s Mills, yet they still managed to have a surrogate father-daughter relationship. Greenblatt had some cute moments when she mimicked Mills after he gave her a warning. Her performance reminded me of Dafne Keen in Logan due to the language barrier.

65 was a faulted film that wasn’t as much fun as it should have been. The minimalist approach would have made 65 work better as a streaming film instead of a theatrical release.