DVD Review: 65

65
(DVD 65)

I’ll have to admit, I’m not really an Adam Driver fan, but that’s mainly because I couldn’t stand him in his Star Wars trilogy. But in pretty much anything else I’ve seen him in, my opinion has been dramatically changing. He certainly doesn’t disappoint in 65, a fascinating and exciting scifi time travel dinosaur film from 2023. Though there are some brief moments with additional actors, 65 is essentially a two-person film, with Driver playing Mills, a futuristic astronaut flying a cargo passengers in stasis, who’s awakened partway into his journey when a meteor storm damages his ship and forces him to crash on a primitive planet in its dinosaur age. Discovering that one of his passengers/cargo has also survived the crash, Mills has to learn to communicate with the young woman, Koa (played by Ariana Greenblatt), and then to travel several kilometers to where his ship’s “escape pod” has ended up. Their travel, by foot, through murky swamps and desolate rocky terrain, is endangered by multiple prehistoric life forms and by the environment itself. Can the two strangers come to rely on each other to reach possible salvation?

 

Both Driver and Greenblatt turn in excellent performances in 65, and the atmosphere of the film is well-created. If you like dinosaur action, you’ll definitely get it here. Attempts by the film to explain that the planet they crashed on is actually Earth in the distant past are muddled, and ultimately unnecessary, as this is a film about the experience of survival. Well done!

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

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