Old

Die klassischen interessanten Kameramann-Tricks von Shyamalan am Anfang und ein schöner Gedanke des "gemeinsamen Altwerdens" von zwei Figuren. Alles andere ist aber schlecht. Je mehr der Film versucht, ernst und grausam zu sein, desto größer wird das Lächeln auf den Gesichtern des Publikums. Dem Film gelingt es nicht, das Publikum gefangen zu nehmen. Er ist unglaubwürdig und die Zuschauer*innen erleben die Ereignisse nicht zusammen mit den Figuren. Die Pointe ist OK. Die Verlegenheit, welche durch die kindische Naivität der Auffassung des vorigen Geschehens hervorgerufen wurde, rettet sie aber nicht. (29.10.2021)

So, this is what M. Night Shyamalan serves us spooky rocks after a spooky wind. Unfortunately, his new film is closer to The Happening than to The Sixth Sense, Split or even Unbreakable, at least in how confident it feels despite how stupid it is. Old is actually a useless movie, and I'm fascinated that no one realized this when making it. It works with one single idea that the trailers boiled down to and whoever avoided it unravels it after a few minutes – we're on a beach where people get old fast – and that's the end of it. Shyamalan can't create terror or dread or evoke a mysterious atmosphere. He just tells it like it is and then waits to see if it turns out good or bad. And the whole thing ends with the mandatory twist, but when it came I was already cringing because I was looking for the end credits instead. The main problem with Old, however, is its emptiness. There's really nothing except the aging. Any attempts at drama and the characters realising how little time they have to sort out the problems they don't talk about fade into nothingness. Instead, what has already been said three times is constantly repeated, and the rules of how the beach works and what actually happens on it are explained. Despite the fact that anyone who hasn't fallen asleep knows all of this already after an hour. Old is a good idea stretched out to a hundred minutes. An idea that perhaps no one has even tried to turn into a movie or a script that could work for those hundred minutes. It's boring, stupid, and sloppy stuff from a director who, for the second time in his career (or maybe third, if you count Glass), has become a prisoner of his own ego and his sense of being a narrative genius. Embarrassing film. (22.07.2021)

This sounded way better on paper. The opening minutes are super mysterious, and you wonder why it has such mixed reviews. But then, an avalanche of illogical moments hits, with every character acting like an idiot. By the end, it all makes sense why it's so polarizing. (02.11.2023)

Shyamalan's original and ambitious thriller does not live up to its potential. The premise is certainly imaginative and interesting. The idea of a beach where a group of people start to age is very cool and it's a bit disappointing that the director kept his head down and didn't go too extremes. Of all the people who die here, none will stick in my memory – maybe just the cave scene, that one was excellent, but for a horror film, those elements are quite few. The final twist is satisfying and rational, but it doesn't quite take your breath away. I wasn't downright bored, and for an afternoon Old is an easily digestible genre film that deserves attention, but it needed more emphasis on the material itself and the savagery. Story 4/5, Action 2/5, Humour 0/5, Violence 1/5, Fun 3/5 Music 2/5, Visuals 3/5, Atmosphere 3/5, Suspense 3/5, Emotion 1/5, Actors 3/5. 6/10. (17.09.2021)

One of the few films in recent years that fully drew me into the plot, and where I enjoyed the often ostentatious distraction from the sheer 'cinemaness' and stylistic devices that fully support and serve the narrative. It’s evident that the explicitness of some of the themes, driven to extremes within the satirical spirit of the story, will be like a punch in the face for many viewers, but I enjoyed them very much and have no doubt that I will watch a different film on future viewings. In this, Shyamalan is a whiz who should be respected by jaded mainstream consumers – and Old should be watched with a fair degree of detachment to reveal the humorous displacement of his form and ambitious ideas about life and death. Carry on like this, The Last Airbender is almost forgiven. (11.09.2021)

From the very beginning I had a terrible urge to cheer with the words "Shyamalan you did it, you did it again", but after a few minutes it was clear to me that nothing like that was going to happen. M. Night Shyamalan, Denis Villeneuve and Ari Aster are a directorial holy trinity for me and I adore their films because they often bypass the mainstream and serve up uncomfortable and unconventional spectacle, but Old is just a dud whose comic book source material might certainly have been good, but an equally good cinematic adaptation is unrealistic. The basic concept of a beach where time passes faster along with a shocking final twist plus some respect for the director earns two stars, but the rest is basically all negatives for me. Ironically, the main thing the film falls down on is its main theme, namely aging over time. Each character ages at a different rate, in a different time frame, and in a different way, making the plot a very random hodgepodge of all sorts of things. I was counting on things not making sense, but this felt like a chaotically random mix of events that the screenwriter thought of five minutes before filming. Likewise, the characters' personalities and emotions are terribly poorly portrayed, as they've practically aged 30 years in an hour, and thus no one really has any idea what might be going on in their heads. And no, conversations like "We never had prom or homecoming, poor us" really aren't words anyone would say while on the island and one character after another is dying. Plot-wise, it's practically about nothing, and the few things Shyamalan chooses to visualize (birth???, surgery...) are the two scenes that don't make any sense at all. All in all, we have empty, uninteresting characters and a sometimes comical plot (broken bones in a cave? the whole cinema was laughing... ), when you are actually just waiting for the final twist and hoping for some redemption that would allow you to forgive the whole previous mess, but we don't really learn "what's going on, why is it happening" or anything else, and apart from the surprisingly well answered question "who is doing it" it's simply a waste of time. I was incredibly hopeful that Old would be the new little sibling to Hereditary and go full mindfuck five star, but for me this is one of the biggest disappointments of recent times and I'm nervously pounding the table wondering how the creative team could possibly get this one out into the world. (30.07.2021)

This is a horror movie where space is the enemy. That space is a vast, photogenic, and uncluttered beach. It threatens us with reminders of our own mortality, degradation and degeneration of body and mind. It is not in vain that we observe all the changes on half-dressed people in swimsuits. The only way to defeat the antagonist, the imminent proximity of our own decline and end, is to acknowledge it. A very uncomfortable spectacle in places, with first-rate camerawork designed to permanently take control of the situation from the viewer. Old is in many ways a physical, almost Cronenbergian horror film and for that reason it is rather disappointing here that it chooses to keep a low profile in some scenes in the interests of maintaining a lower bar of accessibility. Here the compromises are quite blatant. (25.10.2021)

The movie seemed great at first. It had an interesting premise and just about when I was starting to really enjoy myself, a strange disappointment set in. The plot was reduced to running around the beach from east to west and then from west to east, accompanied by constant wailing. Given the generous running time, it soon got pretty irritating. Nonetheless, I made it to the end, for which I was "rewarded" with a ridiculous conclusion for which M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t even deserve to be cursed by me. The lesson to take from this? If someone offers you a vacation on a deserted beach, remember to bring contraception. (16.01.2022)