65 review: Adam Driver takes a walk in the Jurassic park
Driver battles dinosaurs in a prehistoric survival thriller that can't escape its own self-seriousness
Film Reviews Jurassic Park
The revelation that accompanies the title card for Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ 65 all but demands a hearty guffaw, except this is a film that knows little of humor. Capturing the self-seriousness of this adventure-thriller set on Earth 65 million years ago, the acknowledgment that Adam Driver’s character is stranded on our planet after his spaceship crash-lands following an unexpected meteor shower is no joking matter. Instead, the premise sets the tone for what can most generously be described as “Jurassic Planet.”
Before we crash-land on Earth and you start to get Battlestar Galactica series finale vibes, Beck and Woods introduce us to Mills (Driver). He’s a family man who enjoys spending time at the beach with his ailing daughter. His upcoming two-year journey into space will allow him to pay for the treatment his lovely daughter requires. That poignant prologue sets the emotional chord 65 will hit again and again once Mills finds himself caring for the one other survivor from his vessel, a young girl called Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) who doesn’t speak his language.
The one way out of Earth is by trekking all the way to where the other half of Mills’ spaceship crashed: up on a mountain a few kilometers away. That turns out to be quite a perilous journey given the overabundance of predatory dinosaurs (“aliens,” to Mills and Koa) that roam this land. The dinosaurs choose to prey on the duo in neatly staged episodic installments that are broken up by equally tidy quieter moments, which are meant to help us relate to the family man longing for his daughter and the young girl aching for her own parents. Spoiler alert: the two end up bonding in ways you can probably sketch out for yourself without knowing anything specific about either character.
Indeed, both are so hazily drawn that their collapse into types is only mildly surprising, and that’s without the heartstring-tugging images we get of Mills’ daughter throughout, each one deployed with such craven intentionality that their manipulative sway cannot be denied. Here is a story of a father and daughter connecting even without the need for language (“mountain” and “move” are the two words they most often use with one another). Such a schematic relationship feels immaterial when, in truth, we’re following an action hero who, no matter how far he falls, how deeply he’s bitten, or how strongly he’s thrown around, will stand up and shoot his laser (yes, really) or his electric grenades to keep fanged prehistoric reptiles at bay.
Let that not be read as a knock on either Driver or Greenblatt, both of whom throw themselves with gusto into the physicality demanded here. (If anything, Driver’s intensity at times makes 65 feel even more self-important than it need be.) With little to anchor each character, the on-screen duo is left to play the predictable beats of each successive action set piece, which has Mills and Koa fighting off dinosaurs of every kind in caves, forests and beaches in what ends up feeling like an interminable if handsomely choreographed thrill ride that ends in a fiery and heart-pounding climax all too reminiscent of similar flicks. As with any kind of well-made action-adventure of the sort, Mills and Koa also have a countdown to contend with: those meteors that sideswiped Mills’ mission are a harbinger of what’s to come, sooner, of course, than anyone would hope.
One choice that makes 65 stand out from the kind of big-budget spectacle that overruns multiplexes these days is the film’s penchant for staging its various set pieces outdoors. This is a movie almost entirely shot in exteriors, with Earth’s own lush greenery playing backdrop to every given terror that stands in between Mills and the escape hatch that’s set to save him and Koa from the cataclysmic event we all know is coming. There’s a groundedness to this approach, with rain, mud, branches, and the like helping to make 65 feel like it truly takes place in reality—even when the dangers Mills has to fend off are something not just out of a prehistoric past, but also (you really can’t avoid it) a still quite recent cinematic franchise. Although the comparisons to Steven Spielberg’s iconic ’90s blockbuster will feel unkind, if not altogether unwarranted, 65 can’t escape the listless constraints of its simple plot structure.
Aiming to be a gripping survival thriller, 65 rarely surprises. With only two characters to speak of, the stakes feel decidedly low. What 90-minute movie is actually going to dispense with either of its leads midway through its runtime? Thus, every new creature that attacks Mills and Koa becomes merely an exercise in cheap, weightless thrills. Not quite as schlocky as its tagline suggests (you can’t tell me “65 million years ago prehistoric Earth had a visitor” doesn’t sound like either a 1950s B-movie or a 1990s campy extravaganza), 65 belongs instead to that gritty, grounded brand of modern action cinema that takes itself much too seriously and which is much too exhausting for that very reason.
103 Comments
It’s been said, but Adam Driver really does look like someone tried to draw Keanu Reeves from memory. That picture is just a stretched out John Wick but with a goatee instead of a patchy beard.
He’s the love child of John Wick and Severus Snape.
Curiously, with a tiny pinch of Danny Trejo.
He looks like he would make a fine 17th century Dutch explorer.
“Old-timey criminal” is still the *chef’s kiss* description of him.
Pretty much the conclusion I reached watching the trailer.
I’ve been waiting so long for Hollywood to realize there’s no rule that says no movies besides Jurassic Park can use dinosaurs, so I was all over this one.
But can they do dinosaurs without adding kids too?
Are they aliens or time-traveling humans?
Ancient astronauts? Maybe Driver builds the Pyramids at the end to better fight dinos.
Aliens.
Maybe the dinosaurs invented a time machine.
It’s Planet of the Apes, but somehow time passes in reverse. And faster.
Aliens. And I’m pretty sure it won’t be an Adam-Eve situation to start humanity on Earth, as they are father and daughter. Unless they come from the planet Alabama.
Ancient human aliens. Emphasis on the “human” – there’s nothing really to distinguish them from modern humans. It adds . . . basically nothing to the film, except that it has to explain more stuff to set the premise.
I will go see it if only to support the general concept of dinosaurs in movies. They’re awesome! They should be in every movie! Instead we only get them in Jurassic Park movies, and only one of those was good (great, actually)!
It’s seems you’re forgetting a little movie called “Theodore Rex”.
You are forgetting “Carnosaur” starring Diane Ladd, a low budget-movie released around the time of Jurassic Park, starring Ladd’s daughter Laura Dern. And of course the masterpiece “Tammy and the T. rex”
Velocipastor!
Is that the one with Whoopi Goldberg in it and they solve mysteries or some shit?
EDIT: Oh fuck
Every movie, you say?
Tárosaurus RexEverything Everywhere (Including Dinosaurs) All at OnceTop Gun: Maiasaurus
See How They Run… From DinosaursConfess, Stegosaurus Three Thousand Years of Lirianosaurus
Tar . . . Pits
Elvisaur: Colonel Tom Parker finds a dinosaur who can sing like a black man.
“Colonel Parker, he can sing – but he’s still a 15,000lb bloodthirsty sauropod who can, and will – and wants to -bite you in half!”“True, but these honkies in the audience find him less threatenin’ than a black man.”
This is a thing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryolophosaurus
‘Women Talking About Dinosaurs’.
The Fast, The Furious & The Dinosaurs
That series has done everything else, so why not?
Everything Everywhere Allosaur
Elvisaurus (An actual dinosaur name)Night Of The IguanodonMegalodon Of The Dead
Night Of The IguanodonMegalodon Of The DeadElvisaurus (It’s an actual dinosaur name)
As a pre-teen in the 70s there was no better Saturday morning show than “Land of the Lost.” If it were still on in repeats, I’d be watching.
As a little kid in the 90s I was watching the 90s Land of the Lost and thought it was amazing
But man those Sleestaks were so slow you wondered how they got anything done. Like catch food.
Marshall, Will, and Holly!
Walter Koenig (Chekhov) and Larry Niven (Ringworld) were scriptwiters for that show. My brother was scared of the Sleestacks. (I was afraid of “Mr. Yuk” so I can’t really mock him, I guess)
And the Detroit Pistons’ Bill Lambier was a Sleestak for a bit!Mr Yuk = Enik?
The film “remake” was fun, but was Will Ferrell camp. A new series could go darker a la Battlestar Galactica (and tell us more about the Slezaks!)
Kinda tired of the trend of taking everything darker though, particularly in sci-fi. We could use some more ‘fun’ sci-fi fantasy. I could just be salty they tried to use the BSG formula on Stargate and ruined the entire premise.
They look really cheesy now, but these guys scared the HELL out of me back in the day
To be fair, you could just watch one episode on repeat since it was always the same:1) Cha-Ka finds a mystical object of Altrusian origin that shows Will and Holly how to get home.
2) Way home is blocked by Sleestaks or Grumpy (the T-Rex). Holly and Will are trapped in a cave or on a narrow ledge
3) Enik tells Rick about Holly and Will4) Rick rescues Will and Holly with the help of the Pakuni, but the mystical Altrusian object and way home are lost.5) Cha-Ka masturbates while watching Will sleep.
That all sounds right. I don’t remember #5 but it’s certainly in the outtakes.
Will was pretending to sleep.
Agreed. I don’t understand the critique that it’s not Jurassic Park. Let’s expand the genre! Superhero films were allowed to do it. Why can’t this be another formulaic entry in a genre?
I think dinosaur film are too limited to be comparable to superhero films. Maybe monster films would be a better comparison.
Yes. YES. I’m going to see the shit out of this movie. Even if it got an F-.
A Sound of Thunder, anyone? I’ll see myself out.
I think Lost World was also good, but of course not great. It’s overlong and wildly uneven, but it has a few iconic moments of suspense and dinosaurs brutally eating humans-type action.
Some parts are very very good, and reach the level of JP. Unfortunately there are parts in between that are not so good.
You’ll be disappointed. The movie treats them as generic monsters for the most part, and they don’t even look that good on screen.
Well that sucks, but it tells me they need to try again. And again. And again. MORE DINOSAURS.
So he’s future human and travels back in time somehow? Or he’s contemporaneous to the dinosaurs on Earth from another planet/civilization that is advanced and he happens to be/look human? I can’t get my head around the concept.
I’m like 90% sure he’s Xenu.
It’s the latter.
Does he somehow end up the ancestor (or otherwise providing the DNA) to all modern humans? Or is it just a coincidence that his species is basically identical?
Just a coincidence. That might not have always been the case though. Apparently the movie went through a bunch of cuts before audience testing and then even more after that. Multiple reviews have noted that it’s disjointed and has obviously been cut to pieces. The opening title card exposition dump seems like an obvious add-on that makes the two characters aliens rather than humans, and their presence has no effect on anything. A couple reviewers have noted that the official production notes from Sony don’t even match the movie: “After a cataclysmic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills (Adam Driver) quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth … 65 million years ago.” Except he doesn’t discover this in the movie. Earth is never mentioned and he wouldn’t know what Earth is based on the opening.Basically, it sounds like in the original script, and possibly a lot of the filming, the premise was future humans accidently time travel back to 65 million years ago. I wouldn’t be shocked if it also included an ending that doing so was what made modern humans today. Though, that would make little sense as modern humans only appeared about 300,000 years ago.
If it’s true that was a last minute change I think it’s too bad because aliens landing on dinosaur-era Earth sounds to me like an idea worth exploring.
“Basically, it sounds like in the original script, and possibly a lot of the filming, the premise was future humans accidently time travel back to 65 million years ago”
Hell, I got this vibe from the first trailer I remember seeing. The fact that he has an English surname doesn’t help. So the plot is essentially “this mysterious alien, Henry Thompson, who looks and acts just like a regular dude, but trust us, discovers Earth, but in dinosaur times, and leaves no meaningful trace of himself”? Because that is…a choice.
Mitochondrial Steve?
Yeah I thought there might be a Planet of the Apes thing going on here but it sounds like just another human race from elsewhere.
It sounds like it was originally a sort of reverse Planet of the Apes but that changed during production. Multiple reviews note that it was obviously cut to all hell and that opening title cards, that turns the characters into aliens, was a late addition. The official production notes from Sony don’t even match the movie: “After a cataclysmic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills (Adam Driver) quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth … 65 million years ago.”In what made it to screen, Mills doesn’t discover he’s on Earth 65 million years ago. There’s no mention of Earth in the movie. He wouldn’t know what Earth is because now he’s an alien species… that coincidently evolved to be exactly like a human. Rumors are they were still doing audience A/B testing just a month ago. Which would mean the bulk of these changes were done well after filming was done. Which would explain why so many reviewers note how weirdly disjointed the editing is, like whole scenes are missing that would connect to the next scene.
Nothing about this looked that interesting to me anyway (and I like plenty of big dumb fun movies) so I’ll plan to catch this some Sunday afternoon a couple of years from now.
Apparently the backstory is not specifically explained in the movie, but it really is set 65 million years ago on earth. Driver’s character is from an advanced species that looks human; there may be a twist planned in which he is the father of all humanity, a la Battlestar. I did read that the movie leaves most of it ambiguous, as if they wanted to do more worldbuilding in a potential sequel. Of course, I really don’t see this opening big enough or having the kind of legs that would lead to a follow-up.
I guess Jurassic Park kind of ruined dino movies for me. I just don’t have the same kind of love as I used to. I will watch it someday in hopes it could be a fun ride. Or maybe a nice time killer at least. But I guess my preference is more Alien like dinos like in the Riddick movies or games. If this was more like Dino Riders or even the old games of Turok, that would be more fun to anticipate. Oh well, to each their own.
?? But Jurassic Park is great… How could it ruin dinosaur movies? I don’t understand this comment.
It was near perfect. Everything since including the sequels has failed to match up.
Agree. Though I still watch the hell out of the sequels, too. Even though some are…really bad.
Lost world is b movie nonsense but it also has the kid kick a raptor out of the window so 10/10. I kinda like Jurassic Park 3 not for the story but for the set pieces which I thought were masterfully shot. Couldn’t care less for any of the World series though. They’re just slogs.
“Couldn’t care less for any of the World series though. They’re just slogs.”Oh come on, baseball still has a lot to recommend it. Have you heard about the new rule changes? You should check it out, the games move much faster now.
I kinda like Jurassic Park 3 not for the story but for the set pieces which I thought were masterfully shot.I’ve gone to bat for it several time. JP3 gave us bits from the book that the first movie left out (the pterosaur aviary, the T-Rex — okay, spinosaur — stalking them during their boat trip). And it does it all at a lean 92 minutes.
You’re free to love it. And free to love any movie involving dinosaurs using the Jurassic Park formula without being called Jurassic Park. I just don’t enjoy it as I used to. To each their own.
I think if there had just been the first one, it might remain special. But six installments in, yeah, what’s to love?
Oh am I? Thanks, I didn’t know.
The Valley of Gwangi was their peak, maybe.
“Alien like dinos”Give me a Herculoids flick NOW, Hollywood!
As an avowed hater of everything since Lost World, I’d say to try this. The dinosaurs are to be feared, they are not used gratuitously and several scenes play as survival/horror. Plus, the Trex doesn’t look like the jurassic park one. That alone is worth it, having the dinosaurs look not like straight Spielberg copies.
So, basically dinosaur planet™.
1917 dispenses with one of its two leads about halfway through. Definitely not a great movie, but probably better than this one. And that’s an answer to your question.
I had fun with this. Modest high-concept adventure like we saw more of about twenty years ago. Remember, world: anybody can make a dinosaur movie! Universal does not own the concept!
is this a prequel to After Earth
It’s bad enough enough that they telegraphed what the movie is really about by calling it “65″. But the commercials mention ‘65 million years ago’ and ‘Earth’ are just horrible.Either treat it directly, like: Oh no, Adam is on Earth 65 million years ago and has to get to his ship before the big one hits.Or do what I want, call it ‘Crashed’ or maybe ‘Spaceship’ like “Plane”. You then have Adam trying to get to his ship, he flies away, but as he does you see in the background the Yucatán Peninsula.
this looks very dumb but also cool, i think i will enjoy it.
You are correct.
Sounds like a movie that my 9 year old son and I will watch every Saturday for about a year.
Are Mills and Koa the only survivors of the crash? They should have had a few other characters to get nommed on by the dinos. A movie like this needs some red shirts.
“What 90-minute movie is actually going to dispense with either of its leads midway through its runtime?”A certain Academy Award–winning 91-minute sci-fi film from 2013 comes to mind.
EXECUTIVE DECISION
GI Joe?!?!?!
No but really what movie are you talking about…?
Hahaha, well, ten-year-old spoilers for a 2013 Best Picture frontrunner, but………..gravity
So… which premise fits this best.
“Let’s try to make After Earth, only without it sucking”
or
“We really wanted to make a Dino Crisis movie but couldn’t get the rights, luckily that meant we had a bigger budget”
Dino Crisis. The whole time last night I was just thinking “this action scene is straight from Dino Crisis “
So, this guy just “A Sound of Thunder”-ed the fuck out of our planet. This would explain Trump.
I’m gonna take a wild swing at the twist: humans didn’t originate on earth, it turns out we took the planet from the dinosaurs.
I’m sorry if that’s a spoiler I have no idea if that’s correct but if I am jeeeeez that’s lazy.
That’s not the twist. There isn’t really a twist.
Before After Earth: Gynysys
This movie was strange because it really felt like someone’s passion project in all its self-seriousness . . . but their vision was a generic, not-particularly-interesting SF action film that’s not even bad enough to be that interesting. It feels like the type of movie that ten years ago probably would have been dumped straight to Red Box. Driver is good as a SF action lead, though. Give him a better action movie and he’d be golden. The revelation that accompanies the title card for Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ 65 all but demands a hearty guffaw, except this is a film that knows little of humor. I don’t know why they did that. It adds nothing to the film, except raise the “suspension of disbelief bar” and maybe makes Mills less likely to recognize that these are dinosaurs. The characters are all humans, they like humans, and don’t even really have any culture differences from modern humans. But even the dinos themselves aren’t that interesting. The movie treats them mostly like generic movie monsters that swarm and attack our protagonists rather than behaving like animals. It would literally not make any meaningful difference to the film if this was an alien planet with alien monsters instead, other than losing the “dinosaur” hook. The language barrier feels like it was meant to force the audience to engage the film on a more visual basis, but it ends up just hurting the character development of these two – this would be a much stronger film if they could actually communicate better and form a more solid rapport.
Saw this last night. Semi spoiler……..But I think they wasted a key plot point with the whistling. Koa and Mills could have developed their own communication through the whistling. She even whistles for him at one point and he responds by screaming KOAAAAAAAA at the top of his lungs, as if that wouldn’t draw the dinosaurs! Why introduce whistling 3 different times if you’re not going to use it to increase communication?
A review of a dinosaur movies and there’s no mention of how good (or not good) the dinosaur effects are? That’s the whole point of dinosaur movies: seeing cool looking dinosaurs do shit. No one gives a shit about the lead’s daughter back home. All I want to know is: Are the effects good?
They were fine.
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I liked this a lot last night. Solid B in book, especially because it’s only 90 minutes. Can’t wear out its welcome.Absolutley died laughing when we find out he didn’t just crash land but it’s meteor day.