The new film 65 is set millions of years in the prehistoric past—and its ideas are only slightly younger. A mishmash of .
Despite these shortcomings, 65 knows it’s not charting unknown territory, and it delivers a series of encounters that keep the action’s engine humming. The daffiness of the entire enterprise winds up being its core strength, protecting it against critiques about its illogicality. Techno-devices magically purify water, laser guns never run out of energy, and separated shoulders are only fleeting injuries that can be shaken off as soon as immediate threats are neutralized. In almost every way, the proceedings resemble an impromptu game of make-believe concocted by a kid playing with his or her toys—a situation that renders it both inane and lighthearted.
When Koa spies a bright light shining in close proximity to the moon, 65 introduces a genuinely amusing the-sky-is-falling twist, and the way it subsequently uses it for race-against-the-clock suspense is nearly as hilarious. Without completely giving things away, Mills and Koa’s luck turns out to be even worse than they initially realized. The fact that Driver and Greenblatt maintain straight faces through to the end is not just impressive but admirable, and helps the film avoid falling into the wannabe-so-bad-it’s-good trap that’s sabotaged more than a few prior cinematic beasts, including the recent Cocaine Bear.
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