December Madness: 65

What in the hell were these people smoking when they released a film like this? I want some! This film is hilariously awful and unbearably miserable. Despite a great premise, it moves slowly, has awful worldbuilding, and only gets points for one minor thing and it was at the very end. Let's break down why 65 is a terrible movie.

PLOT: Slow and weak.

The film is trying to be a slow-paced and tense movie, but it fails to do either with its 1h32 runtime and a lack of tension as there's no attachment to anything. They reveal early on that Adam Driver has no real reason to go home and thus you're not really stressed for him to make it home. The girl who's supposed to be 9 looks like she's 14 because she was 14. The film is so uninterested in worldbuilding and explaining anything that you don't even know what Driver's goal was for his expedition. THE WHOLE REASON HE'S THERE AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHY. What a mess.

CHARACTERS: Hollow and nonexistent.

These characters are cutouts. I have nothing else to say besides blegh. Move on.

SHOTS: Meh.

The movie looks dark as hell or just so visually cluttered that you can't make anything out. The one good shot is a shot of a t-rex appearing as a silhouette behind the characters which is pretty cool. Everything else is generic action movie shots.

SOUND: No.

The music is so tonally dissonant that you go from one musical cue of magical whimsy to tense horror in less than three seconds. Sound design is also just overly generic sci-fi and doesn't stand out.

WRITING: Blegh.

You think a film with this cool of a premise would at least feature fun writing or at least passable writing. But, no, the film has generic trope after generic trope and manages to make its characters less likeable and explain even less. The characters speak a different language, but there's no reason for this besides adding a struggle for the characters to go through. It's like saying Luke Skywalker needs to speak Huttese just so that Han and Leia have to teach him Common. It's frustrating how you can waste a premise.

CONS: Everything.

Literally just everything sucks. I'm moving along.

LITTLE THINGS: The ending credits.

The one good part of the movie is this nice little vignette of the mountain as it moves into modernity. It's so well paced and honestly kinda beautiful. They even show a similar lens flare they used before, which is a nice touch. That's the most effort they put into this movie.

VERDICT: An awful project wasting a promising story.

A slow-paced slog of a story that wastes a premise that could be awesome. A futuristic society coming to Earth far earlier in our timeline would be so unique and intetesting, but it's wasted on a premise that could've just been Earth people going to a planet with dinosaurs. What a waste is all I can say.

SCORE: 1.5/10