M. Night Shyamalan is a brand. His name alone being stamped on a trailer can bring asses to seats. In his latest film, the India-born director squanders the promise he showed in his 2016 comeback vehicle, “Split,” by again riffing on a “Twilight Zone”-like premise, but with mixed results.
“Old,” Shyamalan’s 14th feature film, gives us another mindbender that is meant to be all about the payoff. The plot involves a family of four, including parents played by Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps (both miscast here), who arrive at a Dominican resort with their two kids.
One of the activities recommended by the sketchy hotel manager involves being bussed to a picturesque private beach, which he describes as a "once-in-a-lifetime experience." They are accompanied by another couple (played by Rufus Sewell, and Nikki Amuka-Bird).
They find a dead body on a beach and slowly realize there is something unnatural happening on this Island. Suddenly, they all start to get old fast, the children now adults and the adults now wrinkled. What may be the cause of this? That’s the mystery that Shyamalan wants to hook the viewer with here. He does make sure to cut off their cellphone reception. Okay, so, how about they just leave the island? Well, they can’t. For some reason, anyone who attempts to exit the beach ends up getting a massive headache and fainting.
It’s all absurd, and the twist at the climax doesn’t necessarily make things better, but more maddeningly worse. I was willing to give this movie the benefit of the doubt if Shyamalan had the kind of payoff that could forgive the flawed setup. He doesn’t.
It doesn’t help that Shyamalan’s knack for tin-eared dialogue is back here, but with a vengeance. Some of the lines uttered by the characters in “Old” have this cringe-inducing feel that recalls some of the director’s most infamous nadirs from the past — especially 2008’s “The Happening” (“Why won't somebody give me a goddamn second?!”).
I didn’t even mention Shyamalan’s misguided decision to have our protagonists stumble upon a celebrity rapper, known as, no joke, Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre) — he looks absolutely traumatized by whatever he’s seen, but is in too much of a state of shock to spill the beans.
I can hate on the guy all I want, but at some point, Shyamalan was known as the director who gave us “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable.” As far as I’m concerned, those two films justify his existence in the cinematic spectrum. However, he’s turned into a one-trick pony, a brand that’s lost all its luster and become a parody of itself. If “Split” was the film that raised our hopes for a possible comeback, then “Old” and 2019’s misguided “Glass” have tamed down our expectations to the bottom of the barrel for whatever his next endeavor might be. [C-]
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