“So, how long will you be gone this time?”

Genre: What is WITH This Planet Y’all Actioners
Release Date: 2023
Where I Watched: Netflix

Gist: Mills is a rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone…because his ship hit an uncharted asteroid belt that killed everyone else on board. Except hey, a little girl survived too! So all these two need to do is figure out how to get off the planet they crashed on to, and get home. Easy-peasy. *dinosaur roar*

Gotta say: When I saw the trailer for this film earlier this year, I figured this would be a B-movie good time. I passed up seeing it at the multiplex, but much like the spaceship in this film, 65 crashed and burned.

The pre-release publicity for this film hinted at the idea of time travel, with Mills and Koa earthlings from the distant future. But from the jump, it’s stated that the two travelers are actually from another inhabited planet, whose advances are millions of years ahead of ours. Yes, it would have been a bit too Planet of the Apes if these characters had been humans, but that question would have provided an interesting question to consider throughout the film.

Naturally, the two year mission becomes much longer than that. And all the while, Mills had been receiving video-mail from his sick daughter, Nevine (played by an outstanding Chole Coleman), which are shown in bits and pieces as the earth-bound duo try to make it to the other half of their broken ship. Koa and Mills don’t speak the same language, but luckily Mills speaks American English (bless his heart), so hooray for viewers like me! Their translator is broken, “…just like everything else on this damn ship”, which makes for lots of teachable moments between the two.

Adam Driver pretty much does a solo job here as Mills, trying to keep himself and Koa alive through all the glorious Jurassic (Jurassic? Sure, let’s go with that) era shenanigans. And that’s a tall order, because those two don’t seem to have a single survival instinct between them. Haven’t they seen Jurassic Park? Godzilla? Tammy and the T-Rex? Ariana Greenblatt emotes well as Koa, but isn’t given much to work with, given her limited lines. Which is strange, as creators Scott Beck and Bryan Woods did such a wonderful job conveying familial bonds and strong emotions in A Quiet Place, and had a wonderful way with scary stuff with both Place and Haunt. So why did this film bit it so hard? Perhaps they just didn’t put in the effort? Or, more likely, with those earlier films, they had someone else in the triumvirate – someone else directed Place, and produced Haunt where with 65, these two had their hands in everything.

There are moments of adult vs. child humor here, but nothing really lands the way it’s meant to. It’s more “oh yeah, uh-huh” rather than “aw that’s adorably funny”. The connection between Mills and Koa never truly blooms into something I cared about, and I found myself staring at the screen, rather than caring about what was happening on it. Even scenes that are ostensibly high-tension moments, left me empty. Now, I’m a cold-hearted monster, this is known. But I can feel something when a film tugs the ol’ strings. With 65? Nary a strum. Even at a scant 93 minutes, the pacing is muddy; this might have made an interesting Twilight Zone episode, but it’s too little butter on too much bread when saddled with a feature film runtime. Then suddenly, boom, it’s over. Oh, cool. That happened.

The cast does their best, and that’s a whole lot. But it doesn’t make up for this film’s obviously low budget set design, tepid plotting, disappointingly adequate cinematography, and dinosaurs that are…fine. They’re fine. It’s all fine. But that doesn’t make it fun. Or enjoyable. Only disappointing.

Come for: Dino-sau-ers!
Stay for: A film to kill some time with.