On paper, the new science-fiction movie 65 sounds awesome. A pilot (Adam Driver) transporting a community of strangers in cryosleep encounters an unexpected asteroid storm, forcing him to crash land on an alien planet… which turns out to be Earth, during the time of the dinosaurs. It’s Jurassic Park meets Land of the Lost, with a splash of Ridley Scott’s Alien and any other great sci-fi feature you can think of. But while watching 65, I started thinking, “Man, how long would I actually last in this particular situation?” And so, I asked Driver the same thing.
Adam Driver is no stranger to gruelling physical conditions. The man actually served in the armed forces, then went on to hold a special role in the Star Wars universe. He knows his way around sci-fi. But when asked, during a recent press junket, how long he’d personally survive in the conditions presented in 65, the leading man honestly proclaimed:
I would have stayed on the ship. (laughs) Surely, it’s a big ship. There had to be pretzels stashed away somewhere. Couldn’t he have made some kind of a makeshift shuttle to launch her into outer space? I would have to be, like, head-to-toe protected with every laser at my disposal to want to leave that ship.
Amen, Adam Driver. There’s a huge difference between watching an action movie, or even starring in an action movie, and actually DOING the things that people do in an action movie. I love Bruce Willis, and I think Die Hard is one of the greatest action movies ever made. But you won’t find me wrapping a fire hose around my waist and jumping off the top of the Fox Plaza building in Los Angeles, pretending to be John McClane from this scene.
To be fair, the more that Adam Driver explained it, he made it sound like 65 co-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods did things on set to amplify the terror. As Driver remembered it:
They did have guys that were in a life-sized dinosaur costume. And they put them in the distance, and in the distance – in the wild – I was surprised how… I mean, it’s obvious when you think about it. But when you’re actually in the woods in the middle of New Orleans and in this swamp, and you look over and see a very realistic dinosaur doing something arbitrary like eating a bush? It’s fucking terrifying.
And it works on screen, better than you would anticipate. Basically, there are two ways that you can do 65. You can cast Ryan Reynolds, and probably get something closer to The Adam Project. Or you can cast Adam Driver, and come away with something a bit more intense, a bit more enthralling, and again, with dinosaurs. Listen to our ReelBlend conversation with the 65 filmmakers Beck and Woods, which we dropped earlier this week. And watch 65 when it opens in theaters on March 10.
