Released on March 10, 2023, 65 is a science fiction action thriller starring Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt in pivotal roles. The movie has a great premise as a pilot crashes on Earth during the Cretaceous period, leaving him and the only other survivor mostly clueless about their dangerous surroundings.
Dinosaurs and asteroids are the film’s main villains, but the film does not make full use of its opportunities and fails to make a mark. The film has emotional elements, and Driver gives his all, but the poor story and effects retract the film’s overall experience.
In the movie 65, Mills and Koa are stranded on Earth, inhabited by dinosaurs, awaiting an asteroid hit. The film’s climax is the best part of the movie, and it brings in a message about kinship and survival based on Mills and Koa’s bond, but on a very superficial level.
1. What is the plot of 65?
In the movie 65, Mills, a pilot, embarks on a two-year space mission to fund his daughter’s treatment. However, his ship crashes into Earth, inhabited by dinosaurs. He and Koa, the only other survivor, fight for survival and have to escape impending doom by an asteroid hit.
65 million years ago (where the movie’s name comes from), Mills is a pilot who lives on Somaris, a distant but technologically advanced planet. His daughter Nevine suffers from a severe illness, and to acquire the money required to save her, Mills decides to embark on a two-year space expedition.
However, on the journey back, their spaceship crashes into an uncharted planet inhabited by dinosaurs. Mills contemplates suicide believing all the other passengers in cryosleep to be dead, and that is when he discovers that a young girl has survived the accident.
Mills makes it his purpose to protect Koa from their dangerous surroundings on Earth (which we later discover). Remember, it is the Cretaceous period, and dinosaurs and asteroids are major threats. Koa speaks a different language, so they have a disconnect, but Mills convinces her to accompany him to the rescue shuttle on the false pretext that her parents are alive.
And then, it is their journey as they fight against life-threatening creatures and incidents and bond all the while. Mills discovers that an asteroid is on the way to creating a catastrophic extinction event, which makes it even more necessary to escape quickly.
However, as they reach the rescue ship, Koa realizes that Mills lied to her and is angry. Mills tells her about Nevine (who had succumbed to her illness during the mission), and they bond emotionally. The climax has a twist as their first attempt to escape fails, and they finally escape death on their ship by an inch.
2. What is the point of 65? What does the ending convey?
The climax of 65 is the action the whole movie has been building up to. It brings in a message about kinship and survival, but on a superficial level. The bonding journey between Mills and Koa lays out the shallow moral of the story in the open.
Mills initially lies to Koa about her parents’ deaths so that she will agree to come to the rescue ship. He fights for her survival, as he feels a kinship with her after losing his daughter in his absence while he is on the ship.
During their journey to the ship, they get separated by a rockfall and have to fight a dinosaur and a raptor-like creature alone. They succeed, and then as Mills is searching for Koa, he falls into quicksand, and Koa is able to reach him in the nick of time to save him. They have a teary reunite.
Koa realizes Mills’ lie before they board the ship, and she is heartbroken and angry. Mills tells her about Nemesis, which creates a sense of kinship for them as they lost loved ones on the trip. Mills vows to protect her. They board the ship, but it falls due to the asteroid’s debris, upon which they have to fight the T-rex that has been stalking them and several more.
This is the fight that makes the whole movie worth something. Mills uses his space gun on the dinosaurs as Koa distracts them. Mills tries to kill the next using the planet’s surface geysers, but it fails, and Koa jumps in to save him by stabbing the dinosaur with a poison-covered tooth.
Right at the nick of time, Mills and Koa escape on the ship as the asteroid crashes down to where they were just moments ago. The two are silent, taking it all in, and then Koa reaches out to hold Mill’s hand, and we witness their connection.
The movie tries to convey the necessity of relationships to find the will to live, as they would have otherwise opted for death, and to survive, as the only reason they are alive is because they had each other. They were able to help each other cope with losses, and the film tries to bring an emotional, moral conclusion to its story.
However, with such a superficial explanation for the movie, it is unable to leave a mark on the audience, and we just keep waiting for the end.
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3. About 65
65 is a 2023 American science fiction action thriller film starring Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt. It is written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and is a co-production between Columbia Pictures, Bron Creative, Raimi Productions, TSG Entertainment, and Beck/Woods.
In the film, after a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth — 65 million years ago. Now, with only one chance at a rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa, must make their way across an unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures.
65 was released in the United States on March 10, 2023, by Sony Pictures Releasing. It received mixed reviews from critics and has also grossed $55 million worldwide.
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