Oh, M. Night Shyamalan, perhaps the most puzzling and intriguing filmmaker of the last 22 years. You can throw his films into two different piles. 1) The good or at least fascinating pile 2) The major disappointment/WTF pile.
Happily, his latest offering “Old” goes into the first pile. If anything, due to the sheer brute strength of the weirdness of the entire movie.
When a group of tourists get corralled to a mysterious beach, it’s not long until they realize that they’re aging at a ridiculous rapid rate. Like, hours equal years on this beach. The kids are turning into grown ups and the adults are entering their twilight years. That fast. After one day.
While it’s a wild affair that insists you don’t think too hard, it does keep an audience invested.
This movie is just weird, man. Maybe not “Lady In The Water” weird, but strange enough to make us keep wanting to know what happens next. Shyamalan sets up the pieces on the board nicely enough to give the story the “shove off” it needs to make for an interesting movie.
It does come off awkward though.
Not sure if it was by design (it very well might have been), but this cast is very wooden at times. There is also a lot left unexplained here. And this formula at it’s base might just be to goofy to be enjoyed by some.
But while it’s not the second coming of “The Sixth Sense” or even “The Visit”. It’s enough to make you sit down and once again go on another wild ride from the “Night Man”.
Old
Grade: B-
Rated: a hard PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour 48 minutes