Knee-jerk review: "Old"

 1. We'd seen some mixed reviews, so weren't sure what to think.  All in all, a pleasant surprise.

2. The camerawork is top-notch, always gliding and roving and swooping.  It gives the action an unsettled, queasy vibe.  Like all good horror movies, what the camera shows is often just as important as what it doesn't.

3. We love Ken Leung.  

4. How are we supposed to post something about this film without revealing all kinds of spoilers?

5. The first half hour or so is something of a master class in incongruously creating a sense of dread out of the lush trappings of a fancy tropical resort.

6. It's a genius premise, the sort that makes one wonder why someone didn't make a movie like this sooner.  Fear of getting old, of mortality, of losing one's youthful vigor - those are universal worries.  The movie strikes a particularly poignant chord as well for parents everywhere dealing with the inevitable march of time as kids get older and older.
  Time is precious, don't wish your life away, carpe diem.  We often spout these pithy aphorisms, but how often do we really grasp what they mean?
7. We could totally believe there could be a well-known hip hop artist named Mid-Sized Sedan.

8. What is it about M. Night Shyamalan always wanting to put himself in his movies?  And a lot of times, it's not some Hitchcock-style character, it's a fairly large supporting role.

9. We think there's something significant or symbolic in the name of the report our characters visit, but we can't figure out what that might be.

10. Not only is it a fairly simple-yet-brilliant premise (if you've seen the TV spots you know all you really to need to know), the movie does a great job exploring it from a number of different angles.
  Aside from one horror movie gross-out scene towards the end, the film plays everything fairly straight.
11. Definitely a "Lost" vibe with creepy supernatural goings-on in a beautiful tropical setting.  Ken Leung's presence underscores that parallel.

12. There's some nice foreshadowing going on in the opening scenes.  It's a bit overt, yes, but it works.  We've heard people complain about M. Night's dialogue, but look at the crazy plots of his movies - these are big stories about very strange things.  Quiet subtlety and sly subtext wouldn't necessarily work.  His movies aren't about gritty realism and high-minded drama.
13. The ending stretches credulity - sometimes weird stories don't need everything tied up in a neat little bow - but it's still satisfying.

14. Wikipedia tells us the movie cost $18 million, which really is the perfect price tag.
15. Yeah, it's "only" PG-13, but it's a dark movie, people.


16. One big takeaway: if your swanky  resort offers to send you to a secret and secluded "no trespassing" beach, politely decline.

Our revised, ranked list of M. Night movies:

1. The Sixth Sense (1999), obviously

2. Unbreakable (2000)

3. The Visit (2015) literally gave us chills in a couple of moments

4. Old (2021)
5. Signs (2002) ridiculous ending and all

6. Split (2016)

7. The Village (2004), like most of his movies, has an ending that you just sort of have to go with

8. The Happening (2008) probably should get begrudging admiration for so audaciously tackling so looney a premise
9. Lady in the Water (2006) is better forgotten

We never saw The Last Airbender (2010), After Earth (2013), or Glass (2019).

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