Intro:
Hello everyone, so…does anyone know about this film which was released on March 10th, 2023, hot off the heels from the last year’s blockbuster Jurassic World Dominion called 65? No, not anyone! I would not be so surprised cause this film bombed at the box office harder than the meteorite impact which killed off the dinosaurs. If you somehow know about this film, you are one of the unlucky ones to carry this knowledge as me and I before I start rambling about my thoughts of this film, let’s go through the summary and the dinosaur appearance in the film.
Summary:
65 starts with showing Mills, our protagonist, in his home planet playing with his daughter who has has some sort of disease and to pay for the treatment, he needs to pilot a galactic journey to find habitable planets. Then we jump to the spaceship where he is carrying a group of scientists but unfortunately the ship goes through our Solar System’s asteroid belt and gets damaged.
The ship is damaged and crashes on Earth and he has lost all the crew other than just one kid who does not speak his language, so you can already see the film’s vocabulary is going to be super limited with just screams and some handful words. Off to a great start, the film does show the title, ’65’ and adds another subtitle which was not in the marketing mind you and it is ‘Million Years Ago’ and already my inner paleontologist is fuming.
Getting back on track, Mills finds the only survivor, a young girl about the same age as his daughter but she does not understand English and they somehow try to communicate and trek through the treacherous wilderness of the prehistoric Earth. By now, they do not know it is Earth but us audiences know.
Then we have some dinosaur or whatever the film decides is a dinosaur depending on the producers and some generic thrill action happens until they finally reach the escape pod which was quite a ways far. Then for the finale, Mills fights of 2 Tyrannosauruses with his sci-fi gun and kills them both. Understandable, seeing how unrealistic the design was but surprise, there was another “Dinosaur” hunting them from the start.
Mills distracts the new “dinosaur” so far that he literally reaches the beginning point under a night of running. I don’t know how this is possible, it took them days to reach the escape pod but he reached the geysers in less than a night but whatever. Then out of nowhere, the girl comes in and stabs the “dinosaur”s eye and it gets on one of the geysers and gets burned alive. They run back to the escape pod before the asteroid hits the Earth which kills off all the dinosaurs, the KPG Extinction happens while they escape.
As the end credits roll, it shows that Earth being transformed to the modern human civilization and that is it. I presumed that the people from Mills’ planet came to Earth to inhabit but whatever, my investment and the interest I had was already turned to dust and that is it for the film. Let’s get on to the “dinosaur” list.
Dinosaur List:
Here is the list to the so-called “Dinosaurs” that appeared in the film:
- Lagosuchus
- Tyrannosaurus (alive and skeleton)
- Woolly Mammoth (cameo)
- Fasolasuchus
- Unnamed dromaeosaurid dinosaur
- Dsungaripterus
- Unknown aquatic finned creature (cameo)
- Parasaurolophus (carcass only)
- Jakapil
- Pectinodon
- Oviraptor
- Unknown pseudoscorpion
- Unknown parasite
- Quetzalcoatlus (cameo)
- Ankylosaurus (seen in early test screenings; cut)
- Lystrosaurus (seen in concept art; possibly replaced by the Jakapil in the final cut)
- Pegomastax (seen in concept art; cut)
- Stegosaurus (seen in early test screenings; cut)
- Triceratops (seen in early test screenings; replaced by the Fasolasuchus in the final cut)
My Thoughts:
Just like how the 65 ended, my hopes, my enthusiasm, my naivete for a dinosaur film which would be actually good and be a competitor to Jurassic film series died alongside the ugliest dinosaur designs I have seen in my life. To start off, the plot is not bad but the execution is horrible like those designs. An alien, human-like species discovering Earth during the time of the Dinosaurs and has to survive for a couple days in this dangerous environment before the extinction event is a great idea but it did not play out well. I like the idea, I really do but 65 did not live up to it at all.
I also like Adam Driver as an actor but him being the only speaking character to the audiences can make the film super long and getting bored is the easiest thing to do. Even the horror aspect is watered down because the protagonist has his trusty sci-fi gun and a whole range of weaponries that he uses when there is a “dinosaur” attack.
All the horror tension is down the drain and for a horror movie, you would want some people to get eaten or killed right, cause that is how horror movie works. It could have done that but literally all the passengers in the ship just get lost or died during the crash only leaving a young girl who cannot speak well.
Like the girl was there to give some screams and remind our protagonist for who is working for and go to. The producers could have done that with a hologram like it is shown in the film. The girl does not even need to be there and also, why is there a young girl in an interspace exploratory travel. Those kinds of traveling, where you scout an area if a location is safe or not and there are possibilities of certain death, you do not bring a child into those missions!!
I would say her parents were being super irresponsible for this and they also died before she even realized, so it is very dehumanizing. You can say they are aliens with different morals then ours but then why even show them as humans, why not something different than human for us to understand that humans would not operate like this but that is not the case. It makes me so mad that they want to ripoff Jurassic so much while trying to be different, that does not work.
Now, onto the “dinosaurs”! Woo! I am about to get angry right now! THESE THINGS ARE NOT OUR DINOSAURS!!!! These are just your generic Dino-monsters. There has not been a single time in this movie that I can go and say, that’s a real dinosaur. Jurassic Park, at the time, was the most accurate portrayal of dinosaurs of all time and till now, some designs are fairly accurate, partly thanks to the paleontologist consultants who worked on every Jurassic film, Dr. Jack Horner & Dr. Steve Brusatte.
Some designs might be a little close to movie monsters but not anywhere near as the “dinosaurs” of 65. This shows how cheaply 65 was made, the budget was only 40 million dollars and I could just go on and say that AI made the “dinosaur” designs, heck some of the creatures are not even dinosaurs. Lagosuchus was a small, land crocodile of Triassic and Fasolasuchus is just another Triassic rauisuchian, not a dinosaur and not even remotely close to the gigantic size shown in the movie, like why even use that.
This is what happens when no one is passionate about dinosaurs and they think they can make a quick buck from the Jurassic World Dominion hype train cause that made a billion dollars, maybe we can scavenge off some 300 million or something. Womp! Womp! The film only grossed 60 million dollars, hmmm…. I wonder why.
65 did not even showcase a single herbivore, not a single one. The planet Earth looked like a hellscape heaven for Carnivores. Everywhere you go, carnivores are there like what!! why?? A ecosystem cannot thrive if it is only full of carnivores. And Cretaceous herbivores are much more dangerous than whatever monster dinosaur it was shown in the final act. One hit from an Ankylosaurus’ tail club and you are dead. One stampede from a herd of Parasaurolophus or Alamosaurus, you are squished into smithereens from that. One ramming from the horns of a Triceratops, you are dead by impalement.
The producers had a whole roster of popular and unique dinosaurs to choose from but nooo!!! you had to go and choose some weirdo, carnivorous, non-dinosaurs and monster-fy them thinking that will make a profit!! I am saying again, the producers does not care about the majesty of dinosaurs and just want to make a quick profit out of the hardcore dinosaur fans and I am glad that you guys, you loyal readers, did not pay for this film.
I am glad you did not see 65 and this is one of my rare instances where I willingly wanted a film to fail after I paid to watch it in the theaters. They hired a Japanese artist to create “dinosaur” designs and he is a shame to all the amazing paleoartist from Japan. No wonder they could keep the cost low, cause yen to dollar difference. I could go on and on about the designs, how horribly shrink-wrapped they are, choosing the rule of cool than accuracy and this and that but all of these would go away if they literally changed the title and subtitle of 65 along with the extinction event and the end credits scene.
The producers advertised as 65 taking place on Earth. That’s the problem!! That’s not Earth! No life forms on Earth look like that! I could have believed it if it was another planet other than Earth. Keep it in the horror genre, have some people getting eaten or killed by some alien dinosaurs, do not have the extinction event because it is not Earth and like order some reinforcements to wipe out the planet from alien dinosaurs.
There you go, a reverse invasion film with human-dinosaur horror adventure. Is that so hard to think about? No but you needed AI to make the film with AI dinosaur designs, AI pacing and AI plot. I will not give any credit to anyone for this 65 film and shame on Adam Driver for even accepting such a role. This film should have remained in development hell like most dinosaur films are.
There are so many great stories that has been rotting in development hell but this atrocity of a film gets produced and released theatrically, this film is a shame even to streaming platforms. I have bashed a lot on this film because it deserved it, not gonna lie and this needs to be spread in the Hollywood’s close-minded, greedy producers. Make good films that are worth our time, not some trash like this!
Well, there you go! A review of the film 65. I hope I do not have to talk about this again. If you feel pretty bad after reading, no worries, you can order some gigs from my Fiverr and I will give a nicely designed dinosaur illustration for you and if you do want something that is not a dinosaur, I have dragon and monster commission up as well. Better support artist who are trying to make the world a better place but showing something beautiful and real with their art!!
