I’ve always maintained a strict policy with my media consumption until I didn’t. These days I’ve allowed myself to see numerous subpar stuff just because the initial glance at the poster or the title of a show or movie seemed alluring to me. Me being a fan of sci-fi and fantasy only propel me toward more of these things. I suppose picking up 65 (2023) was almost inevitable as soon as it appeared on Netflix.

As a child, I was really into Dinosaurs. I used to track which species belonged to which era and their bodily features and so. A sci-fi film with dinosaurs in it is something I’d still take a look at as an adult, and I do remember a bunch of dinosaur facts to this day. But this film, 65, not only failed to quench my thirst for sci-fi/dino movies, it kind of agitated me.

The story goes like this, a spaceship pilot (Adam Driver) from the outer world crashlands on Earth 65 million years ago, supposedly just before the extinction event that took out the dinosaurs. All of his crew are dead, except one child. He must survive the dinosaur-ruled earth and get back to an escape pod that’s stuck on top of a mountain during the crash if he wishes to get the child back to her home.

The story had promises and it rings true in some cases as well—and Adam Driver is a competent performer in this film. I'm not particularly hung up over the fact that the extinction event happened 66 million years ago, not 65, a million years is a very long time for species to come and go—but it’s a numbers game and I’ll let it go. However, I couldn’t connect with the dinosaurs in the film at all.

Firstly, several dinosaurs were shown that never existed in real life. Like a dinosaur that looked like a Komodo dragon, but with long legs and faster movement. I suppose they wanted to go for a velociraptor-looking thing from Jurassic Park (which also got the scale of velociraptor wrong, they were much smaller).

Every dinosaur movie tends to add the famous Tyrannosaurus rex, this ain’t an exception, but this version of the T-rex has four strong legs, like modern-day mammals. No such T-rex ever existed, they always roamed on two legs with very small frontal things I’m ashamed to call legs.

And for some weird reason, the earth seems like a very gloomy place. While there were dangers living during the Cretaceous period, it was bustling with both land and marine dino species, plants, flowers, and birds with so much energy and life all around.

Secondly, the dinosaurs are portrayed as bloodthirsty monsters with a malicious will, when in reality they were simply animals, not much different than our predatory animals today. What do you think a tiger would do if it had plenty of free protein/meat lying around and you were just a few yards apart? Would it focus on the meat or come after you to resolve a personal quarrel? You’d think the tiger would go for the meat, but in this film, the dinosaurs seem to have grudges over hunger. This bugged me a lot as it makes no sense and took the joy out of the film.

Also after the collision of the asteroid that initiated the 5th mass extinction, why are there still trees near the impact? All vegetation in a 1500 km radius was burned to ashes! Even beyond that, the shockwave was massive, the temp in the air was so high it evaporated moisture in animals, and trees would be no different.

I understand that excuse of it being a movie, not a science lesson all too well, but you see, this is a sci-fi movie that’s not trying to be artistic, so what choice does it have without being accurate about the very concepts it's relying upon?

65 had an interesting premise, and it had the potential to be a very enjoyable sci-fi flick, but it remains a failed attempt.

Photos are screenshots taken from the film for the purpose of reviewing it which invokes fair usage policy.

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