'65' has already been forgotten
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It’s very amusing to imagine someone in a studio office pitching “It’s like ‘Jurassic Park’ … but the opposite.” Considering the massive success of that franchise (and the awfulness of the most recent installment), you’d think we would have been inundated with dinosaur-related action movies at some point in the last 30 years. Yet “65,” which is merely another opportunity to marvel at the greatness of Spielberg’s 1993 original, has good effects and perfectly fine performances and just nothing that sticks. It’s silly but too serious, kinda exciting and pretty familiar.
As for the silliness and the opposite … ness: The mash-up of humans and dinosaurs here happens not because of bringing extinct creatures into the present but in telling the story of a pre-humanity astronaut crash-landing 65 million years ago at pretty much the worst time you could arrive on Earth. Mills (Adam Driver) at first believes himself the only the survivor but eventually finds Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), who appears to be 12 or 13 but Mills surprisingly estimates 9 even though he left a wife and young daughter behind to embark on this two-year mission. Then again, it’s best not to think too much about what does or doesn’t make sense here; I laughed out loud at the opening text scrawl and was excited for a movie as ridiculous as its concept.
So it’s disappointing that “65” wants to be a straight-faced action movie even though its dino escapes are too infrequent and almost never convincing. Meanwhile, Driver (who can make almost anything work but is playing a role that might have been better for someone less physically imposing) and Greenblatt have a nice rapport but the characters’ set-up and ensuing dynamic (thanks to the script by directors and “A Quiet Place” writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods) is as conventional as it gets. If the movie was willing to have fun with its extremes (which doesn’t mean making light of the situation), “65” might have been well-made, goofy entertainment rather than a special effects test reel packed with cliches. Fill this thing with more nonstop dino lunacy and another couple characters and it’s an easy fix.
Instead, let’s just go rewatch “Kong: Skull Island.”
C
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