Starring Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt

Written and Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods

Sony, in Cinemas now

When a space pilot crash lands on Earth, 65 million years ago, he has to battle prehistoric hazards to survive.

‘Of all the planets, in all the all the solar systems in all the universe, you had to crash land on to mine – and on the same day as the major extinction event suggested by the title of the movie!’

No sooner had I got the voice of an intergalactic Humphrey Bogart out of my mind than it was replaced by that of Moss from the IT Crowd: ‘You’re not going to Adam (Driver) and believe this.’ And I’m afraid I didn’t – which is a shame because I’d been looking forward to 65.

The premise of an alien landing on an Earth full of dinosaurs and being the prey fighting for its survival is a good one but it is oddly wasted here. It could have been a fascinating inversion of the Predator franchise but 65 doesn’t have that kind of chutzpah. Part of the problem is that Adam Driver’s alien isn’t alien enough, and the dinosaurs seem unnecessarily aggressive. I understand why the T-Rexes in Jurassic Park are grumpy – they’ve been genetically engineered and stuck in a zoo – but I spent a lot of this movie wondering why the animals on this Edenic Earth didn’t just run away, given Adam’s firepower, and if you’re questioning the motivation of a CGI monster then the film probably isn’t holding your attention in the way it should.

The film isn’t helped by its bumpy, stop-start structure which gets in the way of any real tension, not to mention the overuse of narrative get-out-of-jail-free moments, and I found myself waiting for a Planet of the Apes style twist, which never came. Instead there’s a hackneyed ‘lost child’ subplot, and every dinosaur cliché we’ve grown to sigh at over the years.

Verdict: 65 passes the time but is, ultimately, a scrappily constructed disappointment. 5/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com