The Happening

"The Happening" didn't. M. Night Shyamalan's film rested on a strange premise. While I liked the environmental message echoed in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" that man must be a partner with nature on the planet, the idea that a substance could abrogate free will and drive masses to suicide seemed preposterous. If the plants had decided to go on an oxygen strike and people started suffocating, that might have made more sense. Here we have wind blowing on the grass or the wind in a tree which is supposed to be a sinister event. Shyamalan's image of people jumping from buildings was unique as was the car crash. However, these moments could not salvage a weak premise.

The shaky premise was also complicated by the lack of acting performance. This has to be a failure of Shyamalan as a director to elicit good work from most of his actors. I did like two performances in the film. Betty Buckley was the coach in Carrie in her first film back in 1976 & played a country singer in Tender Mercies. She won a Tony award for "Cats." As Mrs. Jones, she creates one of the creepiest characters I've seen in a long time, a woman who lives in the middle of nowhere, cut off from contact with the outside world with no telephone, television, radio or computer. When she smashes her head through the glass, it is the crowning moment to a woman who slapped the girl's hand for reaching for a cookie and screamed with paranoia that her guests were trying to steal from her shabby old house.

Another good cameo was by soap star Kristen Connolly who played a confused woman reading on a bench. Her confusion and odd behavior sets the tone for upcoming events. Child actress Ashlyn Sanchez as Jess did an acceptable job with the little she was asked to do. Her stoic stare as her father abandons her has to be Shyamalan's choice. Alan Ruck who was in the great film Twister as well as "Speed" has a brief cameo as the principal.

On the negative side, Colombian-born actor John Leguizamo was in a film I liked, Assault on Precinct 13 (Widescreen Edition). The Groomsmen now joins this film as two for which I did not care. As the father Julian, I understand his concern over the fate of his wife. However, his abandonment of his daughter in a stressful uncertain time was inexcusable. And this was BEFORE he went nuts. Leguizamo did what he was asked to do; so again the fault in conception is with the director. Mark Wahlberg's cardboard thin performance as science teacher Elliot Moore may have one wondering if this was the same actor nominated for an Oscar for The Departed (Widescreen Edition). In the scene where he's separated from his wife, his level of concern was very low.

For me the worst performance of the film, the real raspberry, is Zooey Deschanel as Alma. This actress had received a Best Actress nomination by the Independent Spirit Awards for All the Real Girls and was in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. I have no idea what Shyamalan said to her to get such a wide-eyed vacant stare as a woman who thinks she may have destroyed her marriage and faces the lethal health crisis that threatens her life.

While the cinematography was good, the story and major performances preclude me wanting to watch it again. Taxi!

As my brother put it, for being called, "The Happening"....nothing happened. I think the idea behind it is interesting, but the movie just didn't meet the full potential it had the opportunity to. The acting by Zooey was terrible. I expecting much more from all I've heard of her talent. Disappointing to say the least.

Holy bad acting Batman. I tried hard to watch this movie. The first half hour, I figured it has to get better. Marky Mark (sorry Wahlberg, but you were Marky Mark in this stinker) was reading his lines. That guy from Sex In The City was reading his. And Zoey, I do love Zoey, was just plain not good in this film. There was a point at which I said, life is just too short to lose an hour and a half.

I skipped ahead to the end. And the mystery here, nature self regulating, is actually a theory some people have about what might happen to man for what we have done to the planet. Sorry Shyamalan fans, I just couldn't sit through the bad acting to get the full effect of his presentation of that theory. Well I also take issue that the director chose to say Americans were first, and the threat was over. Except, wait a minute, let's pick on our real enemy - the disease hits the French in the last scene.

At the very least it was filmed reasonably well.

The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable are two of my favorite movies, so I keep giving M. Night Shyamalan another try. The Happening might be the worst 2 hours I've spent watching a movie ever.

I don't usually write reviews, but this was so awful I hope I can save at least one person out there from this mess. I wish I could unsee this movie, it was a total waste of time.

I don't own the Dvd but I have seen the movie. Just to note that. That aside on to the movies review. I heard that it was plants doing it. So I watched it with my bro (who is easy to please movie wise) and I told him that if it was plants that this movie was going to suck. Based off of what I saw in the previews. This movie met my expectations and exceeded them. Holy crap is this movie bad.

On a interesting note I challenged myself to come up with better plots based on plants doing it. I did. Though Given this movie anyone really could.

First did anyone making this movie take a science class anytime during their life. The end is crap though I won't spoil it. Do they even understand how airborn things work. They don't magically disapear. Not just with the air but they take liberty in this one scene with people going out of a windshield. Though if you can look past that is the movie good? That is a resonding NO. The plot is utter crap. From the reason for why this is happening to how it is happening. I thought that some of the acting was okay. But I am not an acting person so not an expert.

Now interesting enough my brother mention about didn't like the movie ether. Sad. So Avoid this movie get another one. Save your money. But if you have to have it then this review isn't going to matter much to you but beforwarned this movie sucked. Totally and completely sucked and could have been so much better. I am not one of those that expected greatness cause of the director to add to the point.