'65' Movie Review: Adam Driver’s earnest effort fails to pilot this sci-fi vehicle out of its genre affectations

This film feels like a low-key independent feature and the aim here is to make every challenge feel personal and therefore extraordinary

Film: 65

Cast: Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman, Alexandra Shipp, Nika King

Director: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods

Rating: 2.5 /5

Runtime: 93 min

Director duo Beck/Woods’ who co-wrote ‘A Quiet Place,’ craft a rather simplistic, fairly intense, distinctively unambitious creature cum survival thriller that fits in with the sci-fi genre. There’s really not much worth in the story other than the fact that it is set 65 million years ago dating to the time when Dinosaurs went extinct due to a giant meteorite hit on planet earth.

The main character here belongs to a planet called Somaris. Mills (Adam Driver) is sent on a two-year-long expedition but while out in deep space, a meteorite hit causes his ship to crash land on a planet unknown to him. We soon discover that the Planet he has landed on is Earth - one overrun by Dinosaurs of every hue and size, and the only survivor alongside him is a young girl Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), whose language he doesn’t speak or understand. The challenge for him now is not only to battle the Dinosaurs but to search out the escape pod and make it back to his home before Earth gets hit.

This film feels like a low-key independent feature and the aim here is to make every challenge feel personal and therefore extraordinary. Unfortunately, that’s not the experience we have. The plot doesn’t develop beyond the lame premise, nor does it seem to build into anything better. The narrative is rather lean. This is a genre exercise that has nothing much to showcase other than action and sweaty tension with a little parent-child psychological complexity thrown in. Mills’ longing for his now deceased terminally ill daughter Nevine (Chloe Coleman) and Koa’s loss of her parents in the crash are juxtaposed to provide some emotional catharsis.

The stinker though is in the plot itself. It’s weird that a ship that couldn’t avoid an unexpected meteorite shower is expected to find a way out just when a giant meteorite is set to hit the planet.Beck/Woods' script fails to tie up individual character moments into something more worthwhile. The screenplay feels conscripted for lack of a suitable budget. There’s not much dialogue but even actions don’t speak all that loudly here. The Dinosaurs look scary enough but they come at Mills in ones and twos so the challenge itself is limiting.  Derivative, disappointing, and rather lacking in adrenaline-gushing thrills, this simplistic survivalist action-adventure amid a prehistoric backdrop fails to lift off even if Adam Driver does. He is so sincere and earnest that his unstinting effort appears to have gone down the drain!

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