65 (2023)

65 (2023)

Tagline: 65 million years ago prehistoric earth had a visitor.

(Sci-Fi, Dinosaurs, Bad Timing) [PG-13]

In this one, a space explorer named Mills embarks on a two-year journey when the ship ends up crashing on earth 65 million years ago. The ship splits in two sections and all by one passenger aside from Mills ends up dead. The other survivor is a little girl named Koa. As it turns out Koa and Mills must travel 15 kilometers to the section of the ship that they believe might have a working escape vessel. In their way is a lot of rugged terrain and prehistoric creatures all determined to kill them. 

First off, when I saw the trailer for this, I automatically put it in my TOP 10 most anticipated movies of 2023. The premise is awesome, even if it’s based on assumptive science and not observable science. In other words, we don’t really know that the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. Essentially, radiometric dating is accurate, but its use in trying to measure age is based on some assumptions that are incorrect. The rate of diffusion of helium from a zircon crystal can be measured and the rate of diffusion of helium is compatible with the crystals being about 5,000 years old, not 1.5 billion years old.

For the movie's purposes, this all takes place before the event that wiped out the dinosaurs. That’s awesome. What else is awesome is that the movie franchises including STAR WARS assume there have been other civilizations that mastered space on their own planets, but for some reason needed to come to earth anyway. Because that’s what a lot of sci-fi does. 

A couple of sci-fi tropes that are very prevalent in sci-fi overall are... 

1. If you find a monster in another country, the first thing you need to do is bring it to America. 

2. If you are from another planet, the first thing you need to do is somehow end up on earth to check it out or warn us about something.

This movie features the latter. When it comes to the dinosaurs I won’t get much into what is going on there because it would be considered spoilers, but let’s just say this isn’t JURASSIC PARK. Effects wise I think they did a great job with this and the score is pretty fantastic. I think this movie suffers in other areas and one of those areas is the script itself. It is hard to imagine a race that can send explorers on multi-year missions wouldn’t be able to solve the problem that Mills is trying to solve in this movie. It also doesn’t make sense that Mills would take the risk he does for the length of time that he does. The emotional side of this movie I think was expecting to give the audience a certain feeling about things, but the set-up is so inadequate that I never really felt drawn into these characters with the exception of Koa. I think this movie would have benefited greatly from 30 more minutes of getting to know this crew a bit, a better introduction to Koa, and 10 more minutes on Mill's home planet. I rarely ask for more run time, but this movie seems incomplete to me. It’s also plagued with circumstantial stuff that didn’t need to be there. There is something that happens towards the end of the movie that even in the universe we are being introduced to, feels just way out of whack. 

Acting wise this is a good one out of Adam Driver (STAR WARS: EPISODE VII – THE FORCE AWAKENS) who plays Mills. I do think he was better in THE DEAD DON’T DIE, but his character here is definitely showing more range. Ariana Greenblatt (LOVE AND MONSTERS) is great as Koa, but don’t expect to understand much of what she’s saying. She is also a 16-year-old playing a 9-year-old but she pulls it off. We also have another Chloe Coleman (AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER) sighting. She is good in this and has quietly become one of the biggest stars “period” in Hollywood, but she doesn’t get a ton of screen time. Nika King (B-GIRL) has a very limited role here rounding out the entire human cast we see on screen. She is good in this and even though she’s done a ton of TV, this is only her second feature film. 

Overall the pacing is fine and the action sequences are intense, but there was something off about this whole movie and I think it’s what I mentioned earlier. It comes across as “part” of a story rather than a full movie. It reminds me a lot of the shorts on the sci-fi channel DUST that I have seen only somehow not as finished as some of those much shorter films. 

I give this one a 5 out of 7 for concept and performances. It’s still good, it just wasn’t what I think it could have been. Some writing changes would have done this thing some favors. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF BRON CREATIVE AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.