This review is based on a Blu-Ray copy of, “65”, provided by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

65 begins with one of the coolest concepts I’ve been greeted with from an original genre movie in recent years; A man crash lands on an alien planet in what appears to be the far-flung future, and must protect a young girl from a race of highly predatory, dinosaur-like aliens… Except the aliens are quite literally dinosaurs, and the man has actually crashed onto Earth, 65 million years in the past. It’s a very cool and creative hook, which makes this movie’s confusing marketing strategy a bitter pill to swallow.

On top of giving away the big twist behind the movie’s setting in every trailer, 65 was also awkwardly tossed into an extremely heavy period of Spring blockbusters during this past March. Competing with the likes of Paramount’s Scream VI and Focus Features’ Champions on its release date alone, 65 also had to try and steal attention from a series of excellent blockbuster offerings released in the same month, between MGM’s Creed III, Lionsgate’s John Wick: Chapter 4 and Paramount’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Had it released during this year’s astonishingly sparse January and February months, 65 might have had a better chance of gaining audience exposure. Instead, it quickly ended up being lost in a sea of bigger names, ultimately going on to flop at the box office.

Worse still is that 65, despite having the production stamp of original Spider-Man trilogy director, Sam Raimi, and the writing and directing efforts of A Quiet Place scribes, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods behind the scenes, doesn’t manage to make the most of its awesome premise in the end. It’s an ultimately short, straightforward affair that feels frustratingly leaden at times, despite a solid lead double act between Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt, as two intergalactic survivors who can’t directly communicate with each other due to a language barrier. There may be enough fun moments in 65 to make it an acceptable rental, if you’re in the mood for some undemanding sci-fi, but considering its imaginative foundation, it’s easy to lament what 65 could have been under better circumstances.

The key draw behind 65 is its horde of very hungry dinosaurs that are eager to make a meal out of Adam Driver’s protagonist, Mills, and his young charge, Koa. Considering the modest $45 million budget as well, 65’s prehistoric beasties are not too shabby either! They feel a little exaggerated in terms of design, for the sake of being extra hungry and murderous, but they’re nonetheless a legitimately imposing threat, lending themselves to no shortage of brutal action scenes.

“65 doesn’t feature quite as much breathless dinosaur action as some may hope.”

Considering that 65 sports a PG-13 rating, and doesn’t go full R, it gets away with quite a bit of dinosaur violence at times as well! Dinosaurs get shot up and sometimes ripped to pieces with a surprising level of gory detail within some scenes, leaning effectively into an alien (for the heroes, anyway) world that truly feels hostile and unpredictable. I would argue that 65 is often at its best during these scenes, with Mills and Koa surviving by the skin of their teeth, as they’re constantly threatened by the indigenous species that are quite eager to see if these new starfallen creatures make for a good meal.

That’s where some viewer frustration can set in though; 65 doesn’t feature quite as much breathless dinosaur action as some may hope. The dinosaur scenes we do get are pretty good overall, but with a lean 93-minute length that probably wastes a bit more time than it should, a more relentless sense of pacing wouldn’t have gone amiss. This could be a symptom of 65 over-egging the narrative pudding, especially toward its climax, as a ticking clock is added that really doesn’t need to be there. The ravenous, deadly dinosaurs manage to suffice plenty well as a threat to the leads!

With barely any human presence in 65, almost the entirety of its storytelling has to be shouldered by Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt alone. The fact that these two lone survivors of a spaceship crash can’t directly communicate with one another, due to speaking different languages, is also a very interesting idea. Heck, I kind of wish that 65 had committed even further to it, and didn’t make Adam Driver speak recognizable English either. Mills is a space man from a very faraway planet, after all, so the fact that he speaks perfect American English, while Koa is more logically given an unknown alien dialect, is pretty distracting. Why wasn’t Mills also given an alien language to speak?

That’s one of the strangest creative choices behind 65. This is especially evident when you consider that these writer-directors have already penned a great movie that was performed without recognizable speech in A Quiet Place, since its protagonists had to silently mime everything. 65 could have achieved something similar, with two leads that both speak a made-up space language, and have to rely on performances that get their communication across to the audience, using signals and emotions over words. That probably would have freed up more runtime to do what 65 does best as well; Pit Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt against a planet full of killer dinosaurs.

Instead, Driver somehow being perfectly understandable to us English-speaking Earthlings invites several superfluous flashback scenes and character moments that dog the pacing, and make 65 a chore to watch during its slower moments. This movie might have delivered a more effective story device if Mills’ backstory was left completely up to the viewer’s imagination, including his survival skills. Maybe Mills isn’t even a true hero; Maybe he’s a space pirate, or some kind of criminal that actually stole Koa from her family, with the two surviving due to circumstance, and not because they actually like each other. There are so many character possibilities that 65 frustratingly leaves on the table, due to inexplicably stopping the movie every so often to push a sob story with Mills and his struggling family, one that completely doesn’t belong in a B-movie of this nature.

For all its flaws, the most frustrating Achilles’ heel throughout 65’s plotting is that it’s so infuriatingly predictable. This repeatedly hurts the suspense throughout the movie, and in turn dilutes some of its survival elements, because there’s never much of a question surrounding what’s going to happen next.

In that respect, 65 almost feels more like watching a video game than a movie. Like a video game, 65 ushers its characters between a series of set pieces, has them use a limited selection of resources to battle enemies, then occasionally breaks that up with ‘cutscenes’ that are meant to flesh out Mills’ and Koa’s personalities, but all they really do is disturb the momentum. The difference with many video games however is that their cutscenes are genuinely interesting, and their stage designs can legitimately surprise the player, rather than presenting them with the kinds of obstacles they would repeatedly expect.

“For all its flaws, the most frustrating Achilles’ heel throughout 65’s plotting is that it’s so infuriatingly predictable.”

Because it’s a movie and not a video game however, 65 instead has to spend a bunch of time meandering about, and showcasing its duo of human characters doing irrelevant things. Some of these moments can be a bit cute, like Koa throwing berries at Mills to annoy him, or Mills swatting a giant bug, only to leave a sticky mess on his neck that he can’t easily get off, but most of them don’t accomplish much beyond making you want to check the time.

Again, this tedium wouldn’t have felt so apparent if Mills didn’t stop to state the obvious sometimes. This is why character turns like Mills having to lie to Koa about the fate of her family immediately fall flat, because they’re so blatantly telegraphed. The same is true of every bit of danger that supposedly adds more obstacles to the journey of these leads. That ticking clock I mentioned earlier? It’s exactly the one you think it is. Perhaps a smidge of additional goofy sci-fi elements could have kept viewers on their toes more, but regardless, 65 is too often defeated by how little it keeps viewers guessing. Its dinosaurs and action scenes are certainly cool, but they would have been even better if they weren’t hamstrung by such a disappointingly straightforward quest to a goal line.

65 is a disappointment, considering the enormous potential of its premise and audience hook. Nonetheless, it feels at home as a rental or streaming proposition for fans of silly sci-fi fare, though even they will probably wish for a movie that’s a bit less leisurely at times.

This is a shame, because 65 is a rare mainstream sci-fi movie without pre-existing source material, and one that deserved to really leap to life as a dark horse theatrical favourite, much like A Quiet Place did before it. 65 at least isn’t wholly toothless in its execution, containing enough dino-fueled mayhem to entertain at home, but a baffling emphasis on character backstory and unimportant details further hamper a movie that’s overall more predictable than it really should be.

Scott Beck and Bryan Woods remain a creative duo worth keeping an eye on, but perhaps they bit off more than they could chew as both writers and directors of 65. The two definitely seem better at the former task than the latter for now, but they still have room to grow for sure. I look forward to whatever original work they devise next.

That being said, don’t be afraid to commit to the hook, guys.