65 review: Adam Driver takes a walk in the 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.