“65” A Forgettable Movie That Can Deliver A Bit of Fun

The 2023 sci-fi movie “65” had a quiet and relatively underwhelming box office run. Despite an appealing premise starring Adam Driver and being backed by a couple producers of “A Quiet Place,” the movie struggled to stand out in a crowded market. I’ve only checked this movie out once a couple years ago and since I barely remembered the movie, I figured it was time to give it another watch.

After a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth - 65 million years ago.

Now, with only one chance at rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa, must make their way across an unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures in an epic fight to survive.

Both audiences and critics were heavily divided with this 2023 sci-fi movie. Now, while the premise of Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs with space guns and trying to get off the planet before the dinosaur-killing asteroid hits probably seemed like a really cool idea on paper, the overall movie feels a little flat.

Even though “65” is generally a flat, sort of lackluster sci-fi movie, there are some good things that came out of it. Adam Driver (or Kylo Ren for some other sci-fi fans) actually gives a solid, intense performance as Mills, and the actor’s actual Marine background really came in handy for this role. The “lone wolf and cub” dynamic between Mills and the young survivor, Koa, adds emotional depth and even a little bit of humor to the survival story.

Seeing Adam Driver’s character battle the ancient beasts using laser guns, high-tech remote sensors and a powerful futuristic shotgun adds a cool, sci-fi layer to traditional monster encounters. There’s also a chaotic finale that can actually give a viewer an adrenaline rush, culminating against an intense climax against the largest predators.

Now, while a few of the action sequences can be a little exciting at times, they often feel generic and really didn’t achieve the level of dread that would be around for the dinosaur action scenes.

SLIGHT SPOILER! The movie’s marketing campaign also caused notable confusion regarding how the plot handled time. The trailers led many to believe it was a time travel movie, but in reality, the plot reveals within the first five minutes that Driver’s character is an alien from an advanced civilization who just happens to crash-land on Earth 65 million years ago.. Some sci-fi fans felt let down that the script never took any big risks or delivered a mind-blowing genre twist with this set-up - which actually would’ve made the movie better.

The overall response to the 2023 sci-fi thriller “65” was largely mixed to negative from critics, but slightly more favorable among audiences. While most viewers appreciated the fast-paced survival action and Driver’s committed performance, many felt the script was overly generic and failed to live up to its unique premise.

MPA: Rated PG-13 for intense sci-fi action and peril, and brief bloody images   (runtime 93 minutes)

Initial release date: March 10, 2023

Streaming services: Hulu/HBO Max/various PVOD services (as of writing this review)

• The warning sound made by the ship's computer just after the crash was first used as the sound effect for the Martian walkers in The War of the Worlds (1953).

• "Koa" in the Hawaiian language means "Warrior".

• Filming began in December 2020 in New Orleans and wrapped in late February 2021. In January 2021, filming occurred in Kisatchie National Forest, Louisiana for the swamp scenes. Several locations in Oregon were also used for the redwood forest scenes: Meyer's Creek Beach, in Gold Beach; Coos Bay; Whaleshead Beach, in Brookings; Agness; and Elk Creek Falls.

• The film's dinosaurs went through many phases of development. Early concept art shows more scientifically grounded, realistic prehistoric animals, including herbivores and a Lystrosaurus, a pre-dinosaur animal distantly related to mammals, which suggests the film at one point might have been set in the Triassic period around 250-200 million years ago, rather than the late Cretaceous. Ultimately, attempts at realism were rejected, as fantasy dinosaurs were considered better suited for a science fiction thriller. Thus, feathered dinosaurs like raptors appear in the film as scaly creatures resembling 1970s and 80s reconstructions with quills instead of feathers. Oviraptor, a birdlike dinosaur, is also featherless. T. rex took inspiration from the fictional V. rex seen in King Kong (2005), and it too was given spike-like quills. Some of the film's creatures, like the four-legged predator or the climbing dinosaur were purely imaginary, though they resemble enlarged versions of animals that lived in the Triassic, a rauisuchian and a primitive dinosauromorph. Some remnants of the early concepts survived in the flying reptiles, whose bodies are slightly more accurate to science compared to the film's other monster designs. However, their heads were redesigned to be more monstrous: though barely visible without freeze-framing, their eyes were placed in their nostrils.

• As a former United States Marine, this is the first film in Adam Driver's career where he utilizes his Corps weapons training.

• Prior to its eventual theatrical release in March 2023 this film had been penciled in for a release date on five separate occasions only to have them postponed by distributor Sony Pictures. The announced release dates were: May 13, 2022, April 29, 2022, April 14, 2023, April 28, 2023, and March 17, 2023.