Watched in the cinema (31st visit in 2023)

Apart from Universal with its three "Jurassic World" movies, no other major studio has dared to make a film about the dinosaurs that have been popular for generations. They have appeared in blockbusters from time to time, but rarely at the centre of the action and usually only very briefly - in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness", you only had to blink to miss them. The sci-fi thriller "65", however, now brings you real dino action outside the Jurassic saga again - and in the process makes the prehistoric creatures as scary as they last were in Peter Jackson's "King Kong". For here the story barely pauses to admire the beauty of the prehistoric animals. They are too hungry for that.

"65" is the latest work by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who had a huge success with their screenplay for "A Quiet Place". Now they are trying to copy the successful recipe of the John Krasinski film. Once again, the protagonists have to venture through a dangerous area without attracting the attention of dangerous beasts. And to avoid having to write too much dialogue, as in "A Quiet Place", they have included a language barrier between Adam Driver's Mills and Koa, played by Ariana Greenblatt. So the two have very little to say to each other during their adventure. The first thing is to survive, everything else can come later.

This has the disadvantage that you only care about the characters because she is an innocent girl and he is a hero plagued by memories. A bit thin, which is why you don't fully buy into it. You also have to overlook some gaps in logic, and a huge threat could have appeared much earlier as an additional area of tension. The script would have done well to be reworked.

The strengths of the film include some nasty jumpscares, the successful animation of the many different dinosaur species and the very crisp running time of 93 minutes. This makes "65" a thoroughly entertaining and effective survival story, whose mission is somewhat reminiscent of "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" and borrows diligently from other films - "Pitch Black", "Interstellar" and "After Earth" are a few - without, however, falling completely to the level of the latter Will Smith shit show. Fortunately, the film doesn't take itself too seriously, but offers exactly what it promises: Adam Driver with futuristic weapons against hungry dinosaurs. You can already tell that Beck and Woods wrote the script with the mindset of a 12-year-old - and anyone who can also mentally put themselves back that far will enjoy it.