65

This weekend, 65, a new sci-fi action thriller starring Adam Driver released into theaters. 65 follows Astronaut Mills as he crash-landed on a prehistoric Earth. Mills must learn to navigate the planet with another survivor as they try to find a way to get back home. This movie was in my top 10 most anticipated movies of this year and was sold on being a movie about Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs. Needless to say, I was looking forward to this film.

The best part about this film was how simple it was. The movie wastes no time setting up the premise of being trapped on a prehistoric Earth. It also doesn't have any extra subplots or side stories and moves at a very brisk pace. At only a 93-minute run time, the movie doesn't waste any time on drawn-out back stories or any slow moments. The movie also delivers quite a few tense moments and almost verges into the horror genre. I actually jumped a couple of times in the movie (granted, not from the movie itself but because the lady next to me would scream when a tree fell down). I also thought the movie delivered some good dinosaur action. There were quite a few fun fights between Adam Driver and the dinosaurs that were fun to watch. Finally, I thought the chemistry between the two main characters was a lot of fun. There was a language barrier in the film, but the story manages to overcome that and still allow the two characters to have some fun interactions. In the end, I got what I wanted out of the movie and had a lot of fun watching it.

Unfortunately, this movie left quite a bit to be desired. While having a short run time worked for the movie in some ways, I also thought it was a bit too short and hurt the overall quality of the film. The movie doesn't spend any time setting up these characters and why we should care about them. It only gives Mills a single trait of being the father with a sick daughter and milks that for the entire story. The movie also doesn't allow any time for Mills and Koa's relationship to grow at all. With a little more time, we could've gotten to see the two of them grow more and their relationship really blossom. Also, I was not a big fan of the way they used the daughter character throughout the story and did not like the direction they went with her and how it relates to Mills' motivation. Finally, I thought the overall plot was a bit lacking in substance. Being a simple story is fine, but the movie really needed a little more meat to it to stand out as a Sci-Fi thriller.

Overall, I found the movie quite entertaining to watch. However, from a plot and character level, it was really lacking in any sort of substance.

Score: 6/10 Grade: C+ Recommendation: Wait and stream this one