M. Night Shyamalan has been a director I have admired, but have only connected with a couple of times. Nearly every movie buff praises his film The Sixth Sense as his best, and rightfully so. It's definitely up there for me, but his grounded work with Unbreakable is truly his crown jewel to me. He then had his string of blockbusters like The Last Airbender, After Earth, and The Happening. This is when everyone began to realize his heydays were over. With that said, his return with The Visit, Split, and Glass were all very commendable. For that reason alone, I had some newfound excitement for his next project. Old is now playing in theatres and here are my honest thoughts on what is easily one of Shyamalan's worst films.
The concept of this film is quite simple. A family on vacation is invited to a secret beach for relaxation. Joined by a few others, everyone realizes that there is more to this location than meets the eye. As they all begin to rapidly age, their children are now teenagers within hours and some of their health conditions also rapidly return. The first act of this film is very intriguing and it had me hooked, aside from the terrible dialogue. Even though the idea hooked me though, this is the prime example of a film that has a cool idea and never does anything with it.
It was at about the halfway mark that I started wondering where this film was truly going because it never felt like it was building to anything. Yes, the mystery of this beach looms over the entire film, but again, the script never dives deep enough to really care about the events on-screen. On top of the fact that the script needed a lot of work in terms of plotting, the dialogue is also atrocious from beginning to end. I understood the fact that these actors had to act as if they were still young children, but none of what they were saying was either believable for that age or it ended up being too cheesy.
One of my biggest problems with any film that sets itself up with a crazy concept is that it needs to focus on delivering at least some answers for its audience. A film that remains ambiguous can be amazing if the characters and story are all great enough to make that not important. Sadly, Old falls into the category of a film that delivers answers while also not really giving you enough to understand. I completely understood the point behind how the film concluded, but it was also quite dumb. Again, this is coming from someone who will always give an M. Night Shyamalan film the benefit of the doubt.
In the end, Old has a few scenes that I really enjoyed. One scene in particular that I really latched onto was one that involved an elderly couple with dementia, but once again, I instantly forgot about it because it was poorly written. If this concept had been sold to someone else to write and direct, I feel like the reception of this film would've been much higher. It's a very neat idea that goes nowhere and the experience almost felt completely pointless to me. Still, I'll give some minor compliments to the overall concept and a couple of noteworthy scenes. Other than that, Old is easily one of the worst films I've seen in 2021.
The concept of this film is quite simple. A family on vacation is invited to a secret beach for relaxation. Joined by a few others, everyone realizes that there is more to this location than meets the eye. As they all begin to rapidly age, their children are now teenagers within hours and some of their health conditions also rapidly return. The first act of this film is very intriguing and it had me hooked, aside from the terrible dialogue. Even though the idea hooked me though, this is the prime example of a film that has a cool idea and never does anything with it.
It was at about the halfway mark that I started wondering where this film was truly going because it never felt like it was building to anything. Yes, the mystery of this beach looms over the entire film, but again, the script never dives deep enough to really care about the events on-screen. On top of the fact that the script needed a lot of work in terms of plotting, the dialogue is also atrocious from beginning to end. I understood the fact that these actors had to act as if they were still young children, but none of what they were saying was either believable for that age or it ended up being too cheesy.
One of my biggest problems with any film that sets itself up with a crazy concept is that it needs to focus on delivering at least some answers for its audience. A film that remains ambiguous can be amazing if the characters and story are all great enough to make that not important. Sadly, Old falls into the category of a film that delivers answers while also not really giving you enough to understand. I completely understood the point behind how the film concluded, but it was also quite dumb. Again, this is coming from someone who will always give an M. Night Shyamalan film the benefit of the doubt.
In the end, Old has a few scenes that I really enjoyed. One scene in particular that I really latched onto was one that involved an elderly couple with dementia, but once again, I instantly forgot about it because it was poorly written. If this concept had been sold to someone else to write and direct, I feel like the reception of this film would've been much higher. It's a very neat idea that goes nowhere and the experience almost felt completely pointless to me. Still, I'll give some minor compliments to the overall concept and a couple of noteworthy scenes. Other than that, Old is easily one of the worst films I've seen in 2021.