Riddled with as many familiar sci-fi tropes as it is laser beams, 65 could seem like a risky undertaking for Adam Driver - but the role actually makes a lot of sense. Having already starred in the Star Wars sequel trilogy for Disney, Driver is no stranger to the green screens, complicated stunts, and space jargon of the genre, but in the years since the blockbusters that launched his career, he's gravitated toward award contenders and indie darlings. To say a movie about an astronaut fighting dinosaurs seems far afield of Driver's milieu is putting it mildly.
Projecting a B-movie vibe despite its A-movie budget, 65 chronicles a captain's frantic survival after crash-landing his ship on a planet filled with prehistoric predators. Encumbered by dwindling supplies and a young girl who also survived the crash, he fights dinosaurs while searching for a way to get the pair off the planet.
Most of Adam Driver's movies are prestige films, so making this sort of movie after being nominated for two Academy Awards seems like a questionable choice, but this couldn't be further from the truth.
65's Genre Shows Adam Driver Takes Risks
While he's known primarily for being a serious actor in contemporary movies, Adam Driver taking on a role in a movie like 65 proves that he's not averse to taking risks. Driver is still at the height of his career, having starred recently in The Last Duel by Ridley Scott and White Noise by Noah Baumbach, and wouldn't have had to choose 65 for the paycheck or the opportunity to work with a famous director. It's clear that he chose the part because it presented a unique challenge, and a chance to dabble in a genre not attached to a huge IP.
65 has a chance to be what Jurassic World failed at, but even if it spawned sequels, other than Star Wars, Driver hasn't attached himself to any tentpole franchises. He's primarily selected roles in movies that focus on character development and getting to work with ensembles of great actors like The Dead Don't Die and House of Gucci. Annette, the surreal musical that combined song and dance numbers with puppetry (among other elements) that earned him the Cesar award (the second American actor ever nominated) just proves that when a project interests him enough, he'll sign on because of narrative merit.
65 Highlights Adam Driver’s Range
Adam Driver has gained incredible notoriety for having his name attached to the Star Wars franchise, but 65 shows that even within a given genre, he has range. Its premise blends the wacky concepts from kitschy sci-fi series like Land of the Lost and Lost in Space with a serious, thriller edge. Given that Driver has been discussed for a Rambo reboot, its action sequences and weapons handling also capitalize on Driver's incredible physicality and his status as a veteran of the Marine Corps. If he approaches it as methodically as all of his other roles, the movie gains more credibility than it would have otherwise.
Connecting Adam Driver to the movie is a no-brainer for producer Sam Raimi and the studio, and it's a no-brainer for Driver to participate in it. At this point in his career when he's done just about everything except an animated children's movie, this kind of action-adventure story is a calculated, appropriate, and welcome risk. Adam Driver has had a meteoric rise in the eight years or so that he's been starring in films, and 65 will project it out of this world.
