M. Night Shyamalan is back to dazzle you with his more terrifying twists from his box of tricks. This time he had adapted for the screen an obscure Swiss graphic novel, so presumably, the idea isn’t entirely original, but there’s no way to know, so let’s talk about Old as the sum total of plot and execution.
Old is a family movie – it may not be a movie for the entire family, but Shyamalan tries. So much so that. he actually diligently cuts away from every disturbing and/or visceral thing throughout the movie. Of which there are plenty. It’s also a family production for Shyamalan himself with someone Night Shyamalan being the second unit director and someone Night Shyamalan doing the credits song. Ok, then, good for the Shyamalans. Moving on. So families…there are several in this movie. They all come to a fancy resort that seems too good to be true and is practically oozing with luxury and then they get told of an exclusive beach. It’s only for a select few guests, remote, idyllic. M. Night Shyamalan himself drives them there is an extended cameo role. So they go there. Of course, they do, that was never the question. People love luxury and seldom question it. The question is will they come back. Early on, you start getting the idea that they might not. There’s something wickedly wrong with the island. Something that’s making them age. That isn’t even all of it, but that’s the main thing and the titular ingredient of the story. The main family is a married couple on a brink of splitting up and they have two adorable kids, 11 and 6. The secondary couple is your classic wealthy older man and his much younger, model-looking wife, their young daughter, and the man’s mother. The third couple is middle-aged and married, no kids. All the couples assembled with strategic precision of multi-racialism like Shyamalan had some quota to hit. Tragically, it is done at the cost to chemistry as if the casting just deprioritized that in favor of making sure the cast was appropriately multi-ethnic. So most of the cast looks assembled together almost at random. The petite Mexican Gael Garcia Bernal is constantly towered over by his Luxemburgish movie wife Krieps. Almost zero chemistry, but those two produced two cute movie kids. That’s where the casting shines, too. The kids do a significant amount of aging and are thus played by several different actors of different age groups, and it actually is made to look believable. Nice. Ok, then, what about the rest? Here be a warning, dear readers. I’m going to discuss the rest of the movie. In detail. If you haven’t watched the movie yet, you probably should read any further. Ok? Ok. Moving on. So they are just going to age and be creatively killed off one by one? Is that the idea? Well, kinda, yeah. But the twist – and it wouldn’t be Shyamalan without one – is that the island is actually a research laboratory. The guests are preselected and are strategically experimented upon for the sake of the advancement of science and eventually saving the world. Such a noble idea. But is that how you go about it? By kidnapping prominent members of society (and they all are) and just disappearing them? Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t anyone ever trace it? What…did they all just go on a fancy vacation and tell no one about it? And the other thing is if you are conducting experiments on people, wouldn’t you want them to live longer so you can study them longer? On the island, they last a day or two. Doesn’t seem even remotely practical. Why not kidnap homeless people off the street and experiment on them ala Extreme Measures? Why would you so elaborately and strategically go after people who will definitely be missed? That doesn’t make any sense. And so, like so many things with wild GOTCHA twists the movie doesn’t actually hold on to scrutiny. The logistics don’t sustain themselves. It’s one of those…don’t overthink it and you’ll have fun sort of things. Is it a well-made movie? Well yeah, sure, Shyamalan has been at it long enough to do a decent job in his sleep probably. Is it fun? Kinda. Is it one of his best? Not by any means. Is it one of his worst? Not really. It’s just kind of there. It’s done well at the box office. It has a nice poster. It is surprisingly chaste for a genre movie and covers your eyes like a protective parent. It’s weirdly cast. But it’s ok, it’s entertaining enough. Most of his movies are, in their own way. The man is practically a brand onto himself. It doesn’t really ever turn into a meditation of aging the way it appears to have meant to. It simply doesn’t have the right tone. And so the serious aspect of it only comes out in glimpses, scenes here and there, not as a spine of the production. Seems that Shyamalan went for the obvious instead. The lower hanging fruit. Which makes sense…it is, after all, how he makes his money.
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