The publicity for a novelty sci-fi film called 65 did what it was supposed to – that is, told you pretty much what it was, and how it was different from all the other ones.
In this case, the writer-directors are a couple of hard-working journeymen called Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, best known for writing a gimmicky end-of-the-world thriller called A Quiet Place.
A Quiet Place, you may remember, involved the world over-run by monsters with uncanny hearing. So everyone keep quiet.
Photo: Sony Pictures
You may also remember that it made very little sense if you were allowed to think about it. So, the film went to some trouble to stop you thinking about it. Which brings us to 65.
The trailer tells us that astronaut Mills - Adam Driver – was transporting people from outer space, only to crash land on a stray planet, or “celestial body,” as he prefers.
The passengers all die, saving half the budget – all but one, a kid called Koa. And as Koa and Mills set off in search of the bit of their space ship that will get them out of here, they start to suspect they’re not alone.
In fact, they’re not remotely alone – the hills are alive with the sound of all sorts of gigantic beasts. Have they landed on the planet Pandora? Is this the magical world of Oz?
Or is this some sort of high concept, involving the number “65”?
Which is why we’re grateful for the fact that the movie keeps flashing up helpful captions. Captions that tell us we’ve actually landed on the planet Earth.
No not the Planet of the Apes, exactly. This is Earth 65 million years ago, when Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.
Now, at the risk of being the killjoy blowing the whistle on the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, there are two essential elements in science fiction that don’t actually exist.
One of them is easy travel between places light-years apart – the phrase “light years” may give a clue to what’s wrong with that.
And the other is time travel, despite countless enjoyable stories on the subject going back to dear old H G Wells’s time machine.
But just because it’s nonsense doesn’t mean you can’t use the idea.
You just need to put a bit of hard work into the accompanying sci-fi flimflam. Which is what Beck and Woods do.
“Prior to the advent of man,” they write in captions. “Other civilisations, outer space, galaxy-altering meteorite showers…” and so on.
In other words, don’t worry about it.
And so spaceman Mills and his youthful ward Koa have to head up “the Mountain” – prompted by a helpful portable computer – to find a way off this antique planet.
And we can only hope that we don’t run into any gigantic carnivorous beasts along the way.
Fat chance of that. Wherever they go they keep running into more, increasingly savage dinosaurs, carnivorous to a dinosaur. Oddly, on a planet boasting more digital plant-life than the Amazon Basin, there’s not a vegetarian amongst them.
Good job that Mills has a self-loading gun that fires T-Rex killing bullets with a flick of the finger.
I suspect I’ve failed to convince many of you that 65 is a ground-breaking sci-fi classic. It’s an astronaut-meets-dinosaur pot-boiler with a couple of OK surprises along the way, and holes in the plot you could hurl stegosauruses through.
To their credit, stars Driver and young Ariana Greenblatt do what’s required of them with a straight face. Though after a while you wonder if it’s a waste of all that effort. Unlike a rival space traveller, 65 is considerably smaller on the inside than it is on the surface.
