"Old" 2021
Oh M. Night Shyamalan, what lucrative powers you have over me! No matter how feeble the marketing for your films may be, somehow, I am consistently convinced to pay money to watch your work on the big screen. *Insert meme: SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!*
I am admittedly wrapped around your finger due to the bits of greatness you seem to drop in every other (okay that's being generous) film... Despite repeated bouts of disappointment, I go into every viewing with the anticipation my skin will crawl with concepts of the afterlife and the unjustified souls of "The Sixth Sense". Or fear of ever being alone with a baby monitor again... "Signs". Or possibly I'll have further ammunition to distrust the general population... "Unbreakable" or be wary of mental illness..."Split".
"Old" was no different in terms of my expectation. The premise was incredibly intriguing! A mysterious, gorgeous beach where an individual inexplicably begins to rapidly age in a matter of hours. Escape proves to be nearly impossible, so I mean: WTF. I really wanted to know where this kind of storyline would go and unfortunately, it was about as predictable as you could imagine. The characters were poorly developed, and most were very unlikeable, which made the aging "reveals" weak as hell. The intensity was lackluster.. everything was building up to the inevitable. The grandma was doomed, the dog was doomed (BOO!) and he decided to accelerate puberty and sexual curiosity (in a state of crisis and death, mind you) at a rate that made you scratch your head.
Trent: "Hey, I know there are dead people and stuff on this beach and we seem to be getting older minute by minute for no f'ucking reason at all but uh...you wanna have sex with me? Kara: "Uh.. sure? I have boobs now. Why not? What else are we going to do while everyone else loses their minds?" 😬 At least he didn't choose to get it on with his sister.
Merrr....
In typical Shyamalan style, he has an 'epic' secret to unveil in the last twenty minutes (or the first twenty if you're watching "The Village") where you are told the reason why these particular families are being sacrificed to trial experimentations. And believe it or not, a building full of educated, intelligent, well intentional people are just totally cool with it. (Well you know except that 6 year old little perma-resort boy that knows way too much and tries to provide coded warnings to all potential targets.) The existence of prior medical diagnoses within select subjects is completely glazed over and yet incredibly pertinent to the story's entire explanation. Also, why does this beach exist?? Anyone care or want to investigate what the fuck makes it what it is? Nah bruh. Not important. Not worth investigating. It's clearly God's gift bestowed upon us simply to test medical enhancements on unconsenting medically relevant visitors and their families. Really??? It's about as alarming as learning the plants are all out to get you... (*cough* The Happening* cough*)
As hopeful as I confess I was for the latest installment, it's unique story to tell and it's high potential casting choices... Alex Wolff, Gael Garcia Bernal and Rufus Sewell, especially... the latest Shyamalan feature unfortunately left me feeling like I had in fact aged a decade simply in the process of watching it. Where did my hour and 48 minutes go?
Overall Rating: Quite Disappointed: **1/2/ *****
I’ve never been a fan of his films outside of the six sense and unbreakable. His good with a camera and settings by terrible at writing. For me most of his films pass as if they were thrown together on the spot and usually most of them have massive failures in logic that make the film hard to get past. An alien race travels thousands of light years to get here with aims of conquering the planet and somehow fail to notice that the planet is covered with 75% water. And it turns out that water is the thing that kills the aliens. Somehow that wasn’t a significant enough plot point hole to address. From what you just said with this movie I don’t think things have changed much.
ReplyDeleteAgreed Dad. He tries WAY too hard to make an impact sometimes and the effort is noticeable and exhausting. Signs was fun to watch, but like you said, pretty damn hilarious when you break it down. I will give credit to him on his creativity though. I think I keep watching his films because the subject matter he chooses is just so intriguing. If you haven't seen "Split" yet, I think that was his last mega star.
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