Yup, another M. Night Shyamalan movie. I never know what I’m gonna get with this dude. He has really gonna across the spectrum of things I really love like Signs, Unbreakable, Devil, and The Visit to mediocre things like Glass, to overrated stuff like The Sixth Sense, to guilty pleasure garbage like The Happening. I don’t recognize any of the actors while skimming through the list. That’s not a bad thing. No high expectations. If this is better than The Village, I will consider this a success. I think that is fair.
This has a 5.8 on IMDB, so people may be split on this. No, not like the movie Split. Let’s just go.
Start Film
We are at the Anamika Resort. We meet Guy and Prisca Cappa and their daughter, Maddox, and son, Trent. They arrive at a resort, via a van. This looks very nice and luxurious. We meet the manager and Madrid, she is serving beverages. Ohhhh, they have a 24-hour candy station. The kids meet Idlib, the nephew of the resort manager. Trent brags about being able to do 1,000-piece puzzles. Damn, those kids changed from normal clothes to swimsuits in under 20 seconds, together. Guy is talking about some Warren and Warren company that he has heard about, I think, and he must work in a field where that would be relevant, right? Guy seems to be a good father.
On the beach, one lady’s ass is eating up one side of her bikini bottom. She has 2 friends. Delightful. Trent and Idlib are going around the beach asking what people’s names are and what they do for a living. We meet Sophia Watson who is a chef, Greg Mitchell is a cop, and Mailin Mitchell is a dancer. Maddox just stands alone watching people.
Guy and Prisca are taking their kids on this last family vacation before they get divorced. Guy thinks about the future, and Prisca only about the past. Yeah, they are a bad couple.
My my my my, who is the nude blonde harlot, and her friend? The manager is gonna make arrangements for the family to go to this special secret location, with minerals. And then a lady is on the ground possibly having a seizure. Yup, she has epilepsy. Her husband’s name is Jarin. Her name is Patricia. Idlib also was told to not be in certain places. What a TWEEST!
And right on cue, there’s M Night the van driver. I actually usually enjoy his appearances in his films. We have a calcium deficient lady and her daughter, a dude, and a lady with a small dog. I don’t know if any are together or just the mom and daughter. Okay, I just read. The guy is named Charles, he’s a surgeon, his mom, Agnes, has a dog, his wife is Chrystal (a terrible way to spell that), and their daughter is Kara. There, having names makes my life easier.
M Night gives them a lot of food and tells them to follow the path to the secluded beach. They have so much stuff to carry. M Night refuses to help. None of that seems suspicious. He said it is like a 3-minute walk and he refuses to help, and why so much food? Nobody? Now they reached the beach. I still wouldn’t have wanted to carry all of that. Make the kids do all the heavy lifting.
Charles goes to set up the umbrella, notices the hot girl, and moves closer. Charles is on point. But she has a dude, so pick your battles wisely my man. With what she is wearing, the battles seem obvious to pick. The dog is named Gustav. Prisca asks Guy what book she is reading. He doesn’t know, why should he? Pain in the ass!
Maddox just got a raging clue. The dude that’s with the hot chick, why he’s none other than Mid-Sized Sedan. I can’t believe that I just wrote those words. We just lost Coolio a couple of days ago and now I get Mid-Sized Sedan. This has to be one of the 3 funniest things that M Night has ever written. This name is worth 1 full point. No takebacks on my behalf. One of his songs is “More Dough For the Cookin'”. Wow.
The kids are playing Hide and Seek, he was in the water and there’s a body that floats up behind him. It’s the hot girl, I think. She is also very nude. Mid-Sized is having a nosebleed. This doesn’t look good for him. According to Sedan, she swam out alone and he lost track of her. Agnes’ chest hurts. Chrystal regrets not getting the yacht. Me too.
Trent is complaining that his swimsuit is hurting and he wants to take it off. Prisca suggests loosening it but she notices something odd. Guy is an actuary. That explains a lot. Charles says that there’s no reception here. But they were told to call. Jarin and Patricia show up out of the blue. Jarin is not a great actor, or he is and his character is just strange. Now, something is wrong with Agnes. Jarin is making assumptions about this place having cell service. Jarin suddenly had something weird happen when he went looking for a signal. Agnes is now fine.
Prisca says something is very different with her son. Trent sees something in the distance that is shiny. Okay, I know that the premise is that they are getting older, so the kids are growing. But they kept the camera on Maddox’s butt for a long time. Agnes has stopped breathing. Sedan’s nose is still bleeding. Agnes is dead. Jain looks rough.
Trent is asking Jarin and Patricia their names and occupations. Jarin wants to guess how old the kids are. He guesses Trent is 11, but he’s 6. Maddox is 11, ao she must appear to be 16 or so. Prisca comes and asks Jarin and Pat if they have seen her children. Jarin is like, is everybody trying to play a joke on them? We finally see the kids. Yeah, I get it now. Maddox, have you failed to notice that you suddenly have boobs? I’m a guy, but I feel like that is something you would notice, right? Trent is so thin. Guy thinks it is time to leave and take the kids back. Well, he is shocked. She has to notice a change in her height. Sedan is running away and Charles gives chase. Through the little valley where Jarin had his issue. Both start feeling something strange.
Charles and Sedan wake up next to each other. Charles describes it as intense cranial pressure, like being underwater. Geez, that describes my head at least 25% of my waking hours. Prisca is insisting on getting out of there, but history is showing us that this is a bad idea. She suggests that everybody try to find different paths off of the beach, split into pairs in case one blacks out. Wait, we just saw Charles and Mid-Sized basically pass out together, so this “pairs” idea seems foolish. Charles picks Chrystal.
Sedan, Guy, Jarin, Patricia, Charles, and Chrystal all wake up on the beach now. Kara is really growing. Prisca is talking to Guy and acting like it’s only the kids that are having a reaction. They want Charles to look at the kids. instead, he pulls out a pocket knife and jabs or cuts Sedan’s right cheek. He isn’t sure why he did that. Okay. Sedan says that he must be in shock because he doesn’t feel the pain anymore. When he reveals the wound, it has healed and there is just a scar. What a TWEEST!
Sedan talks about how the girl had just been diagnosed with MS, and they were just chilling. But then she was out there swimming. Patricia thinks that this is group psychosis. Charles says that Kara’s biological age is somewhere between 12-13 and she just turned 6. Prisca offers Maddox a different swimsuit. And the dog is now dead.
Swimming out and around the cove is not an option. Sedan’s real name is Brendon, that makes me sad. Maddox is happy to talk to him though. That is a terrible color swimsuit. It’s grey. I don’t think it would look good on any body or skin tone, to be honest. He has a blood clotting issue.
Okay, time to gather, per Patricia. Time to find out why everyone is here. Patricia seems to be the second smartest one here. Charles and Chrystal have been having issues. Now Prisca doesn’t feel well, she has a tumor apparently. It’s the size of a golf ball. Nope, even bigger and it is growing. She passed out. They think about cutting it out. Time to perform surgery and talk about Nicholson doing a film with Brando. Well alright.
He cuts into her, but the wound heals almost instantly. Is Charles losing his damn mind, dementia of sorts? That tumor was actually the size of a cantaloupe. Damn. Well, she’s healed. Prisca wakes up. Prisca feels better now.
Sedan lifts up the blanket on one of the bodies and he is startled. The body has already decomposed. It should take 7-30 years for this. Now Guy has wrinkles. Is the food going bad or just people growing older? Trent and Kara get closer.
30 minutes is equivalent to a year, approximately. Hahahaha, Sedan says that this is the first time that they wished they were black. Ya know, because black don’t crack, as is the saying. I know, it’s a stereotype, but as a pasty white dude, I am jealous of that particular stereotype. The kids are eating so much because their bodies are growing so fast. Come on, you’re just figuring this out?
Jarin says something smart. People are losing consciousness because it is like coming up to the surface too fast. He suggests spending 8-10 hours walking through the canyon very slowly. You’re going to age about 50 years per day here. So, I think it is worth the risk. But my question is, how does this relate to Idlib? My best guess is that he is part of the solution. Let’s not forget, they were given a ton of food at the beginning for a reason. I feel that if I was more wide awake, I’d already have a solution.
Kara is now pregnant. She will only stay pregnant for another 20 minutes. Oh my. Charles is still dwelling on the movie. Hahaha, Trent thought that you had to have sex multiple times before you have a baby. But how would he even know that? He was 6, right? What 6-year-old knows that? Trent wants to marry Kara and they will never yell at each other and never get a divorce. Chrystal is hellbent on getting help, so she runs off. Chrystal blacked out. The baby is born during the chaos. The baby didn’t survive. Trent is full of crazy rage. Charles has lost his damn mind.
Charles just stabbed Sedan repeatedly and killed him. How did Charles get the upper hand? Sedan looked quite muscular. Guy gets the knife away. Chrystal is still looking good in her old age. Jarin is gonna go for a swim. He thinks he can make it. I respect the decision.
Guy wants to climb up, Trent says he’ll do it because maybe the rock’s properties won’t be effective, but that is foolish. Okay, they finally figure out that someone in each family or group was sick. Prisc, Charles, Patricia, Sedan, and his woman. There’s a man in the distance up where we once saw something shiny.
Maddox asks Prisca if she was gonna leave Guy. There was someone else. Is the color not grey, more of a green? It looks better when she is well-lit. Still not great. Maddox walks out in the water and Jarin comes floating by. Poor Jarin I respected that he tried. Now they know that swimming isn’t an option. Kara realizes how unfair it is that they didn’t get those childhood memories. The baby is turning to bones and dust. Kara is gonna climb. Everyone is trying to talk her down. She slips but still doing well. Just waiting for her to pass out. And there it is. And down she goes. She was so close. Once again, I respect going for it. You’ve lost hot girl, Sedan, Agnes, the dog, Jarin, and now Kara. Charles has lost his mind, so that halfway counts. Yeah, you gotta take chances. Of course, the one family is still whole.
Patricia wants to use 3 floating tubes to go swimming. Then she has her seizure. She hasn’t had her medication and lasted longer than expected. Much longer. Guy’s vision is diminishing. Chrystal has gone crazed looking for Kara. Did Prisca learn something about sound waves? Guy tells Prisca that he saw the text messages. He says that the guy was fake. I feel bad for Guy. They both are aging.
Trent and Maddox find a notebook. This inspires Trent to have this idea of a meta tube that they could use to walk out of there lessening the effects. Interesting. Trent says that the shiny thing is actually a camera. Charles just stole his knife back at night. Prisca has lost her hearing. Charles is worried that they will snitch that he killed Sedan. So he keeps slicing up Guy and Prisca. Prisca runs away to get the kids. Prisca tells the “kids” to go hide. They hear a female, and it is Chrystal. She doesn’t want to be seen. Chrystal lifts up a big rock but she is weak from calcium deficiency. I thought I’d be in bed by now, but this isn’t bad.
Charles is still slicing Guy. Chrystal’s body has healed incorrect.ly. Oh no, her bones are just broken and mangled all over. She’s dead. Prisca cuts Charles. She uses a rusty knife, which poisons Charles. Charles, you went out swinging. Those were back-to-back very painful-looking deaths. Only the family remains, which I don’t agree with.
Guy asks if they were fighting about something. Whatever it was, he isn’t mad anymore. He asks why they wanted to leave this beach. It’s nice that they can reconcile. Oh no, Guy is down. He’s dead. Prisca looks so frail now. She walks toward the shore and collapses. Down to 2 people.
Is this going to be some weird sacrifice ritual? That’s my hope. Trent and Maddox are middle-aged, maybe older. Trent wants to make a sandcastle. I agree with that idea. You’re gonna die. Enjoy the last few hours.
“Idlib sent me a message I never decoded.” Seriously Trent? You’re just now bringing this up? When people are recording you on his uncle’s resort. Time for the awful truth. About 10 minutes remain. The message was “My uncle doesn’t like the coral”. Okay, I thought that reveal would be cooler. The thought is that the coral can be their metal tube. Underwater, they find a passage through the coral. Maddox gets her shirt stuck. Seriously, shouldn’t wear something that loose. M Night is the one behind the camera.
M Night, Theo is his name, reports to Sidney that members of trial 73 are deceased. He’s bringing the drives back and returning to base. I swear that when he gets in the van, we hear someone off-screen say “dad”. He works for Warren & Warren, which Guy talked about way in the beginning as the kids did the 20-second change.
Because of this beach, they have been able to save hundreds of thousands of lives with new medicines. It will eventually be millions. They didn’t fail today. Sidney then speaks about Patricia and her epilepsy. The medication that they gave her when he arrived was the right mixture and she didn’t have a seizure for over 8 hours….16 and a half years.
Sidney implores them to separate the patients with mental illnesses from the physical ones since Charles cost them data on the blood clots. The manager tells Idlib which kids are safe to play with.
Trent shows up and finds the police officer and gives him notebooks or something. They welcome a new couple, the Brody’s. Madrid comes with the drinks, but Trent bumps into her and breaks the glasses. Trent is blowing the lid off the whole operation. Idlib sees Trent and he shows him the message that Idlib wrote.
We flashback to rent freeing Maddox from the coral. They found various spots to take deep breaths from the surface. They are transported home via helicopter to meet their aunt, who there are most likely older at this point.
End Film
Ya know what? That wasn’t too bad. With a 5.8, I was skeptical. The most common thing to read in reviews is that the premise is solid and the dialogue is bad. I agree with both aspects.
One thing that I found super annoying was how the main family were the final 4 survivors. Maddox dying instead of Kara could have worked well. At least it didn’t come down to Maddox and Charles and make this cliche, so I am grateful for that.
The biggest compliment that I can offer this compared to most M Night films is how good the ending is. It is really good and morally complex. No, these families shouldn’t have to die, but if you kill 500 people and save 50 million lives over the long haul, what do you choose? I’m not saying that it’s an easy choice. That is what I like. Innocent and healthy people are dying in a quest to cure awful diseases. If I say, no children are involved, just adults, does that change your mind? Does it change your mind if they only test on people above a certain age? Would you be okay if this was only through people volunteering? I can ask many more questions, and that is something that you often can’t do at the end of a horror flick. This wasn’t pure horror. It was drama/horror, which is fine.
This is currently available on HBO Max and I recommend trying it. It doesn’t start too fast, but it constantly builds once they reach the beach.
Final Rating: 6.1
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Universal Pictures (presents)
- Blinding Edge Pictures
- Perfect World Pictures
- Dentsu (in association with)
Please go find a copy and support the creators.