65: Movie Review

Cast: Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman

Director: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods

About as minimal as it could be, but pleasingly short and to the point, the sci-fi survivalist thriller 65 benefits from its brevity, yet also frustratingly shows what could have been.

Driver is Mills a pilot who takes a 2 year mission to raise funds for his daughter's health issues. But when the craft he's in charge of takes a battering from an unexpected meteor shower, he crashlands on a strange new world called Earth, which is inhabited by dinosaurs.

As he tries to get to an escape craft with a younger charge Koa (Greenblatt) who survived the crash, the pair face innumerable challenges both on the ground and from the sky in the shape of a planet-devastating asteroid.

The twist here of Mills coming from another world and ending up on Earth at the end of the dinosaurs' reign is played out very early on, leaving Beck and Woods to concentrate more on their jump scares and dino attacks.

But whereas that would suggest the film is a series of continual dinosaur encounters and shooting, 65 benefits from a more sparse approach that makes each confrontation both terrifying and fraught with danger. Perhaps stripped of its fat, the script sometimes struggles to do anything but lurch between the obvious and the bonding, but it does it effectively enough.

Adding a language barrier between Mills and Koa also helps, but what the film is more interested in doing is showcasing Driver as a surrogate father, in a storyline that's about as inevitable as the asteroid striking the Earth.

However, a committed Driver sells it well, and while the film itself struggles a little with mixed CGI, it's a generally solid and business-like story that's tautly told and well-acted.