Review

"65": I expected more and was quickly disappointed

9/3/2023

Translation: machine translated

If '65' were a dish, it would be a bland one, despite the good ingredients. The fault lies with a story that is far too dull and boring, and not half as captivating as it would like to be.

Stop the brain, pop the popcorn, enjoy. There are films that work only, and really only, according to this motto. Most of the time, marketing already reveals them or the first trailers. The Fast & Furious series springs to mind. Or Plane with Gerard Butler in the lead role, a more recent example. I wasn't sure about 65.

The film with the number name was indeed produced by horror legend Sam Raimi. And it was written by the same writers who penned A Quiet Place, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. That passes for a mark of quality, because this 2018 silent horror film is smart. What's more, the trailer isn't at all silly, as is often the case with most popcorn films.

93 minutes later, that's how long the film is, I'm smarter: if only I hadn't expected anything. But I probably would have been disappointed, even then.

That's what "65"

is all about.
Mills (Adam Driver) doesn't really want to leave. But his seriously ill daughter (Chloe Coleman) needs treatment that the astronaut and spaceship pilot can only afford by leaving on a two-year mission of exploration.

On the way home, a fatal collision occurs with an asteroid belt that had not been mapped. Mills and his spaceship full of explorers crash-land on a mysterious planet. Any survivors? Just him. And one child. Koa (Ariana Greenblatt). What they don't know is that this planet is Earth and that their story takes place 65 million years ago.

For Mills and Koa, it's a life-and-death struggle that begins. Indeed, the escape pod that could send them back into orbit around Earth is in a part of the spaceship that broke up during the crash. This is several days' walk from them, and prehistoric monsters are attacking them.

Deceptive marketing

Don't make the same mistake I did. Don't judge the film from the trailer. Because 65 is simply not A Quiet Place with dinosaurs. Yet the premise would be almost the same: in both films, mysterious monsters pose a deadly threat that the characters try to avoid while travelling from A to B as secretly as possible. But where A Quiet Place, with its heavy atmosphere and some appropriately disturbing images, permanently etches the impending danger into our consciousness, 65 simply isn't brutal or scary enough. Instead, 65 is predictable and crummy.

These kinds of situations usually end surprisingly bloodless and inconsequential. Horror doesn't work that way
Source: Sony Pictures

If I hadn't been looking, I'd have bet on an under-12s ban, so dull and emotionless is 65. Even during its 93 minutes, it managed to bore me. The fact that this A Quiet Place knock-off still managed an FSK 16 rating is the film's biggest intrigue for me.

Don't get me wrong: brutality and violence for their own sake are not what I miss here. But they are figures of speech that suggest to me, as a viewer, the horror that the characters in the story are experiencing. And yet, 65 benefits from an utterly solid direction. The Earth of 65 million years ago looks lush and prehistoric. The design of the dinosaurs is refreshingly different, with the creators skilfully resisting the temptation to imitate Jurassic Park or Jurassic World. I congratulate them on this. And the computer effects leave nothing to be desired either. Technically speaking, there's not much to complain about.

So what does65 lack, apart from the missed brutality?

Adam Driver to the rescue or not?

The first problem is that 65 is not a horror thriller with dinosaurs, as the trailer suggests. More like a tepid sci-fi action movie a la Will Smith's After Earth. The second, much bigger problem is that a child is placed alongside Mills, played by Adam Driver. And he has to protect him throughout the film. Horror with children? Few films dare to do that. As if there were some unwritten law that nothing horrible should happen to children in films. In 65, it really feels like the film was staged with the handbrake on to ensure a lower age rating (which didn't even exist).

Mills (Adam Driver) and Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) in a not-so-exciting struggle to survive 65 million years ago.
Source: Sony Pictures

And as if all that wasn't enough, there's also the insanely stupid decision that Mills and Koa, the child, don't speak the same language. From a story perspective, this must simply be another obstacle in their journey. In practice, the scenario is one of the impossible. Indeed, Mills almost despairs of trying to explain to Koa every other scene, gesticulating frantically, what their objective is. The plan. The rules. And I despair of Mills! It constantly slows the film down instead of making it more exciting. My eyes roll more often than they should for such a short film.

Then the script also wants me to believe that in the space of a few days and without being able to really communicate with each other, the two men develop an intimate father-daughter relationship. Joel and Ellie from The Last of Us took months to achieve this. But hey, I could have gotten past it. If only they weren't constantly acting like simpletons. The scene in which Mills and Koa take refuge in a cave several hundred metres deep to escape a rabid T-Rex-like dinosaur is exemplary in this regard. When they reach the end of the cave, they despair, as if there were no other way out (walking backwards, anyone?). Then they try to make their way through with hand grenades. Into a cave! That's a good idea. Why not turn around and see if the T-Rex is still there a few hours later, before doing something as stupid as most likely burying themselves under tons of rock?

« Now meat is back on the menu!», Ugluk, The Lord of the Rings
Source: Sony Pictures

These kinds of absurd examples are common. If the film was selling itself as an homage to 1980s B-movie monster movies, I might be more forgiving. But then again, the trailer promises me a monstrous, intense horror thriller. It even promotes the involvement of the writers of A Quiet Place. Now that's raising my expectations. It's my own fault if I'm disappointed.

Conclusion: you can do without it

There's not much more to say. 65 wants to be more than what it is. Scarier and more intense above all. But if, at the end of the day, Adam Driver's futuristic shotgun just fires CGI pellets at CGI monsters, which then squirt a bit of CGI blood across the picture, it's not horror. Not real horror.

If I'd had the script to write, I probably would have removed Koa's child character from the film altogether. Instead, I would have sent Driver off to stalk on his own. For me, it wouldn't have been A Quiet Place with dinosaurs, but The Revenant with dinosaurs. Imagine, wouldn't that be more interesting? I'll call my agent.

65 is available in cinemas from 9 March 2023. Running time: 93 minutes. Not suitable for under-16s.

Header photo: Sony Pictures

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Luca Fontana

Senior Editor

Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.ch

I write about technology as if it were cinema, and about films as if they were real life. Between bits and blockbusters, I’m after stories that move people, not just generate clicks. And yes – sometimes I listen to film scores louder than I probably should.

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