by John Zenoni
In my opinion, M. Night Shyamalan is back in great form with his latest film, ‘OLD.’ While it's mostly getting mixed reviews, I personally loved it as it has several good things going for - it in my opinion.
For those not familiar with the premise, let me give a brief synopsis. A family of four (dad, mom and two kids - a daughter and son) are taking a vacation at a resort the wife found online. The intent is that she and her husband want to do this before telling the kids that she has a tumor and is in failing health. She and her husband also have not been getting along well either and she had an affair. Shortly after they arrive at the resort and are getting settled in, the manager tells them about a private beach that he feels they would greatly enjoy and so they agree to do go. Before doing this however, the young son befriends a young boy and they start sharing secret messages in code. This would be critical later on in the film. The family goes to the secluded beach with several other couples and this would begin the nightmare. Ok, so if you've seen the trailer you know that the premise is everyone begins to age at a drastic pace on the beach and no one can figure out why and can't escape - neither by swimming around nor climbing over the rocks.
First, the dynamics of the cast really worked well in this film. You have a great group of actors who portray characters of various backgrounds. This at least makes the scenes more interesting in terms of how they react to one another. Second, the whole setup is creepy! At least it creeped me out! Here you have people aging so fast that one minute you have a young pre-teen girl on the beach then the next she is giving birth! It's like an episode straight out of the ‘Twilight Zone.’ Third, the scary moments are pretty good and showed things I wasn't expecting.
Now I know the biggest question is - since Shyamalan is most famous with his movies for having a twist - does the ending meet everyone’s expectations of another M. Night film? For me, it did. Is it the biggest or best twist that he's ever had in his movies? No, but I still feel it worked with this particular film. I, for one, feel like the ‘old’ M. Night Shyamalan is back!
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