The Happening

The movie starts off very quickly, and you get a sense of urgency that things need to be done quickly for the cast of characters to be on the move. Starting in NYC, and then in Philadelphia, you are taken on a bizzare ride and race for survival. Mark Walberg does a superb job, as does Zooey Deschanel. It was nice to see John Lequizamo in a serious role. He shows his ability to convince you he is a hiding his fear behind his strength, as he goes on a rescue mission for his wife.

More gorey than any previous Shyamalan flick, this is really a bit off of what I expected. His movies always have a bit of a surprise in them as well, where here, we follow the plot to its conclusion. The scenes of self mutilation were thankfully few and mostly off screen, however, I think there is quite enough of that in society without any kind of epidemic.

With the end, there is a sweet little old lady they run into who seems to have some very bizarre behavior issues. It seemed that there were two issues at hand in the end, giving me a mixed idea of what the point was.

Anyway, the premise itself, the enviroment turning on the only ones who really impact it, quite an idea.

WARNING: PLOT SPOILER

It's kind of convenient when a movie is written, directed, and produced by one person. This way, you definitely know where the blame lies. In the case of "The Happening", we can place the blame squarely with none other than esteemed director M. Night Shyamalan. It amazes me that this work could come from a guy who directed "The Sixth Sense". The only real value in this film is that it is so bad, it is amusing.

I gave this movie one star because I did enjoy the opening. Something strange is happening in Central Park. People are frozen in their steps. One young woman stabs herself in the neck with a hairpin. A few blocks away, a construction worker falls to his death. This was bad enough, but then the site started raining bodies from the scaffolds. We learn that this behavior is caused by some sort of neurotoxin in the air. This neurotoxin shuts off the brain's ability for self-preservation. Was the neurotoxin released by terrorists? Is it some sort of government experiment gone bad? Or is it, perhaps.....the Trees?!

The acting was uniformly poor in this film, starting with "Markie Mark" Wahlberg in the lead as Elliot. In this blatant case of miscasting, Wahlberg plays a science teacher. Not even close. He got no help from Zooey Deschanel as wife Alma. Her utility in this film was limited to semi-closeups of her admittedly beautiful blue eyes. I have never seen an actress less engaged than Deschanel. While this pandemic was unfolding around her, Ms. Deschanel seemed limited to two or three facial expressions. Wahlberg and Deschanel had zero chemistry. John Leguizamo took the role of Julian, the math teacher friend of Elliot. Luckily for him, he got to commit suicide halfway through. Part of the blame can be assigned to the actors, but the script was so poor that you hate to judge them.

One important part of any film or play is pace. This one moved like a glacier. You could literally drive a truck through the dialogue cues. This is director error, plain and simple.

There was some nice camera work and special effects. There is some cool, haunting music. Other than that, there's not much more positive to say about this film.

I'm not sure why there are so many 1 star reviews. Maybe people expect more from M. Night because of some of his other stand out films. This film isn't that bad. After the terrible Lady in the Water and The Village, I thought this one was decent. Certainly not his best, but a fair story. The acting is a little weak, which is surprising considering how talented the cast is. I thought the whole thing was an interesting idea that doesn't quite succeed, but does work on some levels. Maybe my expectations were low after hearing so many bad reviews, but I enjoyed the movie and would recommend it.

I'm a fan of M. Night Shyamalan. THE SIXTH SENSE, UNBREAKBLE, and SIGNS are not only entertaining films, but the stories in those films tacks some very deep and important issues, such as love, the nature of evil, and faith. Even though THE VILLAGE and LADY IN THE WATER were not as well received by either audiences are critics, I enjoyed both of them (in fact I loved LADY IN THE WATER--it's a modern-day fairy tale told right). Therefore, I was quite excited to see THE HAPPENING. Instead of having some great philosophical discussions with friends and family after seeing the movie (as happened each time before after I saw Shyamalan's films), I left thinking "What happened?" and "That was one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen.

The film begins interesting enough and contains enough shock value to hold one's attention for the first half of the film. It's just another day in Central Park in NYC. A woman sits on a bench chatting with a friend when she hears someone scream. A breeze flows through the park and then everyone stops moving. Moments later the woman's friend removes a hair pick and begins stabbing herself in the neck in a deliberate act of suicide. Minutes later at a downtown construction site in the city, a foreman is trying to contact a worker who won't respond when the missing worker's body plunges from the sky. The event is witnessed by several people, but as they rush to the fallen man's aid other bodies begin falling from the sky as worker after worker walks across platforms and plummet to their deaths.

The story then moves from NYC to a small, rural Pennsylvania high school where a high school science teacher, Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is giving an engaging lecture to his students early in the morning. At this point in the movie, as Mr. Moore pontificated about science, I was reminded of a sci-fi parody I saw a few years ago, THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA. The hero of that movie was a scientist, too and said some of the same phrases (almost word for word) that Mr. Moore spoke. Of course, THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA was a parody film of all of those cheap sci-fi pictures of the 1950s and 1960s and was illustrating at how absurd it was that just because a person was a scientist they could be a credible hero and save the world from its problems. When a movie that begins so shocking, interesting, and thrilling takes a sudden detour and causes one to remember a hilarious sci-fi parody about ten minutes into the movie, it's not a good sign.

As for the rest of the plot, Moore is pulled away from his class by his principal who informs them they are dismissing school for the rest of the day and is told about what has happened in NYC. Most of the country assumes that what has happened (and continues to happen as the movie progresses) is a biochemical attack begun by terrorists. Moore isn't convinced and as people begin to migrate to smaller towns to escape the "fallout" of whatever weapon was used, it becomes apparent that even small town America isn't safe. What happened in New York starts happening across the entire U.S. Northeast. Moore flees with his wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel) and friend Julian (John Leguizamo) and Julian's daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) as the try to escape the rather large effected area and reach civilization.

I really like Zooey Deschanel. I think she's beautiful and is rather talented given decent material. It was almost painful to watch her in THE HAPPENING. Her lines were terrible, her character had absolutely no personality, and she had zero chemistry with co-star Mark Whalberg. I'm not a huge fan of Whalberg. He got a huge break early in his acting career because of his huge music stardom and some of the roles he has played he delivered a performance more wooden than a Pinocchio statue. Still, Whalberg does have some talented and, like Deschanel, when given decent material, e.g. THE DEPARTED and INVINCIBLE, he excels. THE HAPPENING isn't a movie where he's allowed to display his talents as a performer. Instead he spends most of the time running around with a scared look on his face and saying lines that even a high-school dropout who hates reading can recognize as bad writing. Oh, and did I mention he has no chemistry whatsoever with his co-star who is playing his wife, Zooey Deschanel. Whalberg does a better job of trying to make the best of bad dialogue, but most of the other actors in the movie don't even try. It's a bad script and other than a few scenes scattered throughout the movie, most of the cast doesn't even seem to be trying.

Other than the terrible writing, there's a thing called plot that if very, very weak. Bascially (SPOILERS AHEAD) the Earth's plants have decided to murder us. That's it. The plants are the bad guys. That's right. Plants. Enough said about that.

Shyamalan's films have always had a layered subtext that seems more important to him than even the actual films themselves. His films are full of meaning and are richly rewarding if viewers allow themselves to think about what they are seeing. I'm sure there is some sort of subtext in THE HAPPENING besides the surface story about nature turning against man because of the destruction we've caused through things like man-made global warming. The problem is that it's not really decipherable what that message is. Is the movie really a comment about terror attacks and how paranoid the citizenry becomes in such events? Is it about the fickleness of the masses? Is it about how reliant we've become upon media and technology so much so that we can no longer think for ourselves? Or is it more like the surface story, a cautionary tale in the vein of JURASSIC PARK warning us that no matter how scientifically advanced we might think we are, nature will always find a way to outsmart us? The movie might be trying to make all of these points, but none of it really matters. In the past, the messages made sense because the movies that Shyamalan made were actually enjoyable to watch. Even THE VILLAGE and LADY IN THE WATER are good movies if you watch them with a child-like wonder and accept them for what they are. However, no amount of suspension of disbelief is going to help make THE HAPPENING a good movie. Whatever message or messages Shyamalan was trying to make become lost and completely overshadowed because the vehicle the message is being delivered in (the movie itself) is so terribly bad. The only good points are the shocking opening sequence and a few other well-done scenes scattered throughout the movie. And that's all that's happening with THE HAPPENING.

Good suspence movie you don,t know who will die next, You hope the main characters don,t die.