By Jonathan Cowie: Several of our local SF group went to see the film 65 (trailer here from the writers/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. First up, if you checked beforehand the teaser synopsis on IMDB, then beware it is potentially misleading. It says:

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 rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa, must make their way across an unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures in an epic fight to survive. 

This suggests time travel. First up it is not. It also suggests that the pilot Mills is human: he is not and neither does he know that the planet will become the Earth we know today. (You learn this all at the film’s beginning, so I’m not giving you a spoiler but sparing you from a potential WTF moment.)

What it is is a marooned on a monster (dinosaur) world much in the vein of a number of other films including Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (which was set on Venus – trailer here). 

65 sees much running away from dinosaurs large and small, during a trek towards an escape module in which our plucky protagonists have limited kit all of which they use at one stage or another to escape. In the film’s second half, there is a countdown to a time-limiting factor that adds to the tension.

It is a so-so offering but, in my view, better than the recent second trilogy of “Jurassic” films (which is not saying that much). Nonetheless, worth a cinematic view for the special effects. Speaking of which, the film’s end credits reveal that one Norman Cates (chair of the 2020 CONZealand Worldcon) was involved in the sfx.

The film’s male lead is played by Adam Driver, the actor who played Harrison Ford’s son in the recent Star Wars second trilogy. Co-star Ariana Greenblatt also does well.

One Easter egg is that the ship’s computer warning is the sound effect used by the Martian’s ‘tripods’ in the original 1953 War of the Worlds film.