65 (2023)
3/5. Trailer. · Wikipedia entry for the film.
Adam Driver crash-lands on what he thinks is an uncharted planet, works out it’s actually Earth — sixty-five million years before anyone recognizable is around — and has to walk the only other survivor, a kid played by Ariana Greenblatt who doesn’t speak his language, across a few hundred miles of dinosaur-infested terrain to a rescue shuttle. Cast Away with teeth. It’s a clean premise and that’s most of what sold me on it.
I regret not seeing this one in a theater. There’s a scene late in the film that’s a pretty direct reproduction of the Jurassic Park cup-of-water T-Rex reveal, and even watching it at home I could tell exactly how much bigger that beat was built to land on a screen that size, with a sound system built for it. That’s on me for waiting, not on the movie.
The effects are solid for what’s mostly a two-hander on blue-screen. The dinosaurs read as physical threats with real weight to them, not just spectacle, and the movie is disciplined about not showing its hand too often.
Where it drags: Mills and the kid don’t share a language, so huge stretches play out with almost no dialogue. I get why — inventing a reason for them to suddenly understand each other would’ve been worse — but understanding why a film goes quiet doesn’t make the quiet feel any less like a drag in the moment. On top of that, the back half is basically one obstacle after another — a ravine, a nest, a swamp, something new with teeth — and while each is staged fine on its own, the shape of it is repetitive rather than escalating.
One other thing that stuck with me: the movie is almost too thorough about cataloging everything you shouldn’t do stranded on a hostile alien planet — don’t split up, don’t make noise, don’t trust the quiet, and so on — and I think the only reason it gets away with walking through that whole checklist is that the lack of dialogue gives it room to show instead of lecture. I appreciated the craft of it, but I’m not sure I actually needed that much thoroughness. It does drag because of it — but at least it’s only 93 minutes, so the drag never gets the chance to turn into a real slog.
Ultimately, given the hellscape we’re all living through right now, I wanted something lighter, and I respect a movie willing to just be a simple survival story instead of reaching for more. Just go in knowing that’s what you’re getting — decent effects, a reasonable premise, and a lot of very deliberate quiet.