65

After a cargo transport spaceship crash-lands on an unexplored world, the pilot and a young girl—the only survivors—must trek across a hostile land of giant lizards, thick forests, and mountainous terrain, in order to reach an undamaged escape pod before a massive asteroid slams into the planet, decimating all life.

Right off the bat, I want to say that this is a decent film. A daring spaceship captain fighting with some cool tech against hungry dinosaurs? I love it. I want more movies like this. It’s a simple and absolutely fantastic idea.

Also, it’s a classic sci-fi one too.

Except, it turns out, I didn’t love this film.

I wanted to. I wanted this film to be great, but… it was only decent.

One of its biggest problem is, of course, it’s terrible god damn title. Y’see, the trick is that the spaceship has crash-landed on Earth… 65 million years ago. This is why they named it 65. This isn’t a spoiler, the title is so terrible that they not only give away the twist on the film’s poster, but ten minutes into the movie, they label the “unknown” planet as Earth, ensuring that the audience is completely aware for the entire film.

A terrible god damn idea, stemming from the terrible god damn title.

And the worst part is, they could’ve left this reveal—that it took place on earth’s distant past—as a little extra surprise, Planet of the Apes style. It’s not the most mindbending twist or anything, and the reveal doesn’t have any bearing on the film’s plot either way, it’s just dumb to give away that card so quickly and easily, especially when it could’ve been a fun little surprise…

But, nope.

Instead of that shitty title, they could’ve gone gonzo with it, and called it “Marooned on Planet Dinosaur” or maybe “Spaceman Spiff and the Valley of the Terror Lizards” or something pulpy like that. That would’ve been much more fun too.

But, nope.

Also, and maybe this is just me, but I wish they had used feathered dinosaurs too. Attacked by giant Chickens? That also would’ve been more fun.

But, nope.

That is the film’s biggest problem… it could’ve—it should’ve—just been more all-around fun. Spacemen versus Dinosaurs? Why isn’t it more fun? This film has all the classic dangers… bugs, dinosaurs, arms popping out of sockets, quicksand… the only thing missing was here was someone’s foot getting stuck in something as the monster closed in… Instead, it’s too dour, too focused on the “real-life” dangers of this survival situation, and not concerned enough with the idea that this is a film about Spacemen fighting Dinosaurs.

So disappointing.

The worst part? The terrible title, the way they give away the little gimmick that it takes place on Earth, and the more serious tone of the film all have the feel of notes from Studio Execs and Non-creatives, probably relying on the moron responses of the average tasteless idiots in Burbank that usually make up test screening audiences. I don’t know this for sure, of course, but after watching the film, it feels to me like there was once a fun idea here about a Space Captain’s tale of derring-do while stranded on Planet Dinosaur. Instead, we ended up with Liam Neeson’s uber-manly man vs nature man-fest The Grey (sometimes known as “Wolf Puncher”) but on Earth’s distant past and versus dinosaurs, yet another tale of a grim-faced man with a particular set of skills being super manly.

Snore.

So, while I appreciate a nice one-off, mid-budget sci-fi adventure with no pre-established IP or franchise intent, this one was generally missing the excitement and thrills that the idea promises. The dinosaur action all fell far short of the kind of thing that the Jurassic Park franchise has in spades, even the later shitty versions, and also, the tech that this stranded spaceman has with him was so basic and uninteresting. This is a small thing, and maybe not as noticable, but to me, it is so indicative of the film’s main issue.

In the end, 65 was… fine.

Which is totally disappointing.