Saw M. Night Shyamalan's "Old" at an early screening.

And it's a solid Twilight Zonesque thriller.

I won't give away much, but the premise and the things happening to characters on screen did get under my skin. It touches on the innate fear of aging and seeing your kids age in a blink of an eye. The death's got creative with the premise towards the end and knows when to pull away from the action to build tension. The characters are trying to figure out what's happening around them and how to solve it. I'm sure some savvy redditors and youtubers will enjoy outsmarting the premise and poking holes, but it's not the point. The point is the fear of aging rapidly and it delivers it with lots of dread when someone gets a cut or a kid ages or someone begins to show a health issue.

There is clunky dialogue and kids speaking like adults as expected from M. Night, but it didn't bother me as much since it's not dialogue heavy when the premise takes off. As for the ending, it turned out to be pretty solid in avoiding the pitfalls that plague some of M. Night's other movies. I thought "oh no, he's gonna explain everything", but explained the right things with the motivation behind it that I thought "Yeah, I can see that and the logic behind it". He could of snipped a dialogue or sentence from each character when they talk, since he's anxious audiences won't get it or fill the right gaps of what's happening. Still a good thriller in my eyes and I was happy to be back in the theater.

If I were to rank Shyamalan's filmography its

1. Sixth Sense - classic
2. Signs - love it, may be due to nostalgia
3. Unbreakable - Aged like fine wine
4. the Village - really liked it, but huge caveats with the logic
5. Old - solid, but may change on rewatch, because it's the 1st movie I saw in theaters since the pandemic started.
6. Split - Solid stealth sequel.
7. Glass - sparks of genius, but tedious
8. Lady In the Water - indulgent, but original.
9. The Visit - Goes between cringe and scary, but not in a fun way.
10. The Happening - Really funny, but pretty bad.
11. After Earth - watched it on a plane and fell asleep.
12. The Last Airbender - never seen it, but the internet declared it the worst, so it's the worst I guess unless I have a hot take.

Never seen Praying Anger or Wide Awake, but I assume they're like James Cameron's Piranha II where they don't count. Servant is a TV show, but I would put it at #4 since M. Night's fingerprints are all over it.

Submitted July 22, 2021 at 09:51AM by Pancake_muncher https://ift.tt/3kK3Yh5