Review of 65: Prehistoric Preposterousness

March 12, 2023

In the planet of Somaris, there lived a space pilot named Mills with his wife Ayla (Nika King) and a teenage daughter Nevine (Chloe Coleman). He had just accepted a mission to lead an expedition which would take him away from his family for two years, very much longer than usual. He would be paid three times his usual salary, funds they desperately needed to find a cure for a serious ailment which was slowly killing Nevine. 

During his voyage, Mills' spacecraft ran into an area with unexpected meteor activity that caused severe damage. He had to make an emergency landing into an uncharted planet which was well off his planned course, but fortunately had a breathable atmosphere.  He thought he was the only survivor, until he found out that the passenger in one of the sleeping pods was alive -- a teenage girl named Koa (Ariana Greenblatt).

Like "Star Wars," this movie starts with some text that told us that this story happened "prior to the advent of mankind" when there were already civilizations which existed that explored the far reaches of space. They really had to make that clarification because that first scene really looked like it was set on Earth. The ocean and landscape of Somaris looked like those on Earth, and Mills, Ayla and Nevine looked and spoke English like regular humans. 

15 minutes into the film, only after Mills lifted Koa out of her pod and saw a giant dinosaur footprint in the mud, did the title "65" appear on the screen. Then quickly under it flashed the words "Million Years Ago," then immediately below, "A Visitor Crash Landed on Earth." Apparently the filmmakers doubted that their audience will figure that out themselves, so they had to spell out the whole situation in black and white before proceeding any further.

As written and directed by the writers of "A Quiet Place" Scott Beck and Brian Woods,  the whole premise was absurd and execution was worse. Driver must be so embarrassed to see himself in those foolish-looking scenes of prehistoric preposterousness. That Koa had to be speaking a non-English language certainly did not help. The dinosaur visual effects here did not seem to progress much from those of the first "Jurassic Park" (1993).  1/10.