
And yet! It almost would have been better-or at least more entertaining-if “65” had leaned harder into that silliness if it had played with the basic ridiculousness of mixing complex technology with the Cretaceous period. The creatures can be startling at times, but at other times they look so cheesy and fake, they’re like the animatronics you’d see at a Chuck E. “65” requires Mills and Koa to schlep from the wreckage to a mountaintop so they can commandeer the escape pod that’s perched there and fly out before dinosaurs can stomp and chomp on them. And the planet, which has swampy terrain reminiscent of Dagobah, just happens to be-wait for it-Earth. Her name is Koa, and she’s played by Ariana Greenblatt. All of the passengers in cryogenic sleep are killed-except one, who just happens to be a girl around the same age as his daughter. On the way to his destination, the ship Mills is flying enters an unexpected asteroid field, gets torn to shreds, and crashes.

He’s about to embark on a two-year exploratory mission in order to afford medical treatment for his ailing daughter ( Chloe Coleman from “ My Spy,” who’s featured in the film’s prelude and sporadic video snippets). On one of them, Driver stars as a space pilot named Mills. It takes place 65 million years ago, but suggests that futuristic civilizations existed back then on planets throughout the universe.

But the film from the writing-directing team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, whose credits include co-writing “ A Quiet Place” with John Krasinski, offers an intriguingly contradictory premise.
