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Post by darksidebeadle on Jul 27, 2021 6:55:38 GMT
I just saw it… not very good , 7th of the 9 Shyamalan’s I have seen
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angel
Sophomore
@angel
Posts: 275
Likes: 142
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Post by angel on Jul 28, 2021 17:26:46 GMT
I've long ceased to care what Shyamalan does next. This is a good thing of course, because my expectations are so low anything less than awful is usually a pleasant surprise, (been a while since I've had a pleasant surprised mind).
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Post by Vits on Nov 1, 2021 9:21:11 GMT
OLD is the rare M. Night Shyamalan movie where there isn't a single character that stands out (positively or negatively). It's based on the graphic novel SANDCASTLE and they both make the same mistake: Just because your story is about a beach where time mysteriously moves faster, doesn't mean that you have to rush through every possible scenario. Every time an important event happens to a character, it feels as if they've already moved on from the previous event. This becomes more obvious in the movie which, unlike the novel, uses the traditional "The members of this big group will die one at a time until only 1 or 2 are left" structure. Not only are these individuals really good at dealing with tragedies (all within just a couple of hours), but one of them (a doctor named Charles) is suffering from mental deterioration and displaying violent tendencies yet the others do the bare minimum with him. Don't tell me that no one brought anything to this trip that could be used to tie him up. At least make sure he's not alone at any point! With a premise like this, it's impossible not to address what happens when a toddler is suddenly in the body of a pre-teen, a pre-teen in the body of a teen, and a teen in the body of an adult. I think this could work with the right approach. It doesn't have to be exploitative nor prudish. It can be smart and mature. Unfortunately, the novel goes too far. The specific things the characters say and do comes off as erotic. Also, early on, the adults point out that their sons and daughters should start covering up, but at some point, they stop caring about nudity for no reason. This is one of the improvements in the film adaptation: No one is ever naked. Even though 2 of the kids (Trent Cappa and Kara) do end up having sex, they talk about it innocently. The dialogue isn't unnecessarily graphic and no one fondles anyone on screen. That being said, the movie does something worse than the novel: Sometimes, the kids' personalities are the same as before arriving at the beach, but other times, they act older. By the way, it's very hard for even the most experienced actor to play a person of a different age group trapped in the wrong body and not make it seem comedic, so I don't want to be too harsh on the cast. The novel ends with the whole group accepting their fate. Some of them go to sleep knowing they won't wake up, while others choose to kill themselves as soon as possible. The only survivor is a baby (now middle-aged) who will most likely die too. The movie ends with Trent and his sister Maddox (now middle-aged) as the only survivors, but they find a way to escape. It turns out that the resort they were staying at is behind all of this. They've done it to other groups before. It's all research so they can develop drugs that can cure certain diseases. This plot twist has been used so many times in the last 10-15 years to the point where the reveal itself and the social commentary attached to it have no impact anymore. And the epilogue is very happy, even though Trent & Maddox should be traumatized. I'm torn. On the one hand, it's a bad idea for an adaptation to substitute an ambiguous and sad conclusion for something more clichéd and crowd-pleasing. On the other hand, the novel was very straightforward. The characterization was basic and the dark moments were presented with humor. The existential and nihilistic ending didn't match the rest, while the movie is more consistent in that regard. Hmmm... Should we declare this as a tie? 5/10 ------------------------------------- You can read comments of other movies in my blog.
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