User:LancedSoul/sandbox/Old

Old is a 2021 American thriller film written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan. It is based on the French-language Swiss graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters. The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Eliza Scanlen, Aaron Pierre, Embeth Davidtz, and Emun Elliott. It premiered at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on July 19, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 23.

Plot
A thriller about a family on a tropical holiday who discover that the secluded beach where they are relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly reducing their entire lives into a single day.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Like some Shyamalan's movies, there is some pointless plot twists, like the twist ending, which received polarized response.
 * 2) Wooden and lifeless acting from all of the cast, especially Gael García Bernal, who sounded really uneven and act like mannequins come to life.
 * 3) One of the most infamous lines of the movie is "It's rust! It acts like poison when it gets into your bloodstream!", which Prisca says as the audience sees Charles being overcome with a septic infection after being stabbed with a rusty knife. The on-the-nose exposition mixed with her strangely enthusiastic delivery as a man literally dies right in front of her has garnered the scene endless mockery.
 * 4) The themes in this movie aren't that impressive.
 * 5) Fans of the graphic novel weren't happy with the film tacking on an entirely new ending, which overly explains what was meant to simply be a metaphorical fable about fear of aging, and even tries to give some kind of upbeat catharsis to a story it doesn't fit at all. There are even fans who think the film could have used whatever ending was originally planned for the graphic novel instead.
 * 6) Weak screenplay.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The cinematography is stunning.
 * 2) The concept, despite the uneven execution, is actually original and good idea and could've been better.

Reception
Old received mixed reviews, with praise for its cinematography and concept, but criticism towards the screenplay and acting. The film's themes and twist ending received a polarized response. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, which categorizes reviews only as positive or negative, 50% of 319 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.5/10 and the audience score was 53%. The website's critical consensus reads, "Old has no shortage of interesting ideas – and writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's uneven execution will intrigue or annoy viewers, with little middle ground between.". The Audience Says section reads, "Love him or hate him, no one makes movies quite like M. Night Shyamalan -- and no one else could have made Old.". Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 55 out of 100 based on 53 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore during its opening weekend gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 61 percent of audience members gave it a positive score, with 37 percent saying they would definitely recommend it.

Videos
