65

65 Million Years ago, an alien visitor - from a species that apparently still have a concept of kilometres - crash landed on Earth.

This revelation comes about 5 minutes into the film, as the title flashes up on screen, prompting a teenage girl sitting near me in the cinema to proclaim in horror “It hasn’t even started yet!”.

I wish I could say it got better.

Said visitor is Adam Drivers Mills; A pilot on an unspecified job whose ship veers off course after being struck by an asteroid, sending him hurtling towards a Dinosaur infested earth.

After the crash, despite initially think everyone else to be dead, he finds a solitary working cryogenic chamber, containing a 7 year old girl, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt).

Unfortunately Koa and Mills are from different areas, meaning they don’t speak the same language, therein presenting the films first big problem.

We know nothing of Koa - other than the fact her parents have died in the crash - and very little about Mills - other than the fact he has a sick daughter -, and therefore designing the script so that the characters cannot talk to each mean we don’t particularly learn anything else about them.

Right from the off the film burdens itself with one-dimensional characters with only a singular trait or motivation each, and virtually no scope to broaden themselves.

Other than to be used as a plot device - as Mills surrogate daughter - Koa’s being on the ship is also never actually explained. She was there with her parents, but the film isn’t interested in explaining her presence any further.

Unfortunately this, coupled with the fact that the nature of the expedition is never specified, meant that I spent far too much of the film hung up on what the purpose of the journey was supposed to be. Where they were going, why they were going there, and why a seven year old child was needed on board.

A braver film would have, perhaps, told the story from Koa’s side. The opening sequence could have instead told us why she was there. We could have then moved to her being pulled out of her pod by Mills, but not actually knowing whether she could trust him. This would have, at least, added some intrigue to proceedings, and given both actors something a bit more interesting to work with, but alas, no. every story decision goes down the most basic of routes.

65 does look good. The Dinosaurs are well designed, and there is some cool cinematography. But unfortunately this wasn’t quite enough to hold my attention. The plot and the characters are so threadbare, despite Driver and Greenblatt doing as much as they can to rescue it, the emotional through line so forced, and the level of genuine threat so minimal, that the damage was already done before the visual team got their hand on it.

There is, I am sure, a decent idea in there somewhere, but 65 - somehow managing to bungle Adam Driver fighting Dinosaurs - fails to find it.

65 is, unfortunately, more Turkey than Pterodactyl.