Old Review

[Westside Steve]

Old

Universal

PG-13.        108 min

 

Now before anyone here accuses me of hating M Night Shyamalan I certainly do not. He seems like a nice enough fellow has a couple of clever ideas and he made the Sixth Sense which was a really top-notch mystery in my opinion. But like a baseball pitcher who only has one good throw, let's say a curveball, and you know he's going to throw the curveball every time he takes the mound… on top of that each subsequent pitch is a little bit weaker than the one before it.

The downside to that is that no matter what happens during the first 80% of the film you know without a doubt there's going to be some sort of unexpected circumstances for the climax. But whether it’s unexpected or just ho hum you know it’s coming. The spoiler here is that I’m giving OLD a C+ not because I’d figured out the ending, I did not, but because the acting and set up were so substandard that even a surprise ending couldn't completely salvage the film.

The setup as we know from the previews is not really a surprise. A handful of seemingly unconnected people have traveled to an island paradise for a vacation. Some of them are tapped by management to visit a secret and secluded spot on the island the only very special guests ever are allowed to see. Upon arriving, they are shocked to find that they can't escape. It also becomes clear that they are all rapidly aging, and that a period of only one day will be the totality of the rest of their lives. I think this particular point would have been much clearer had there been a top-notch makeup artist and special effects team on board but that's not the case. Still during this accelerated time, a few different maladies come and go among the captives either physiological or psychological along with repeated attempts to escape the area. None of that information gives away the ending and I won't even hint at that. And yes, I was surprised so my grade rose from a D (because of the bad acting and shabby production) to a

C+.

WSS