Customer Reviews

The Happening

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(59)
3 star:		(49)
2 star:		(65)
1 star:		(190)

 

 

OK...Umm...Uh...OK, just stall words to keep me from getting started. OK, here goes.

First the negative: "The Happening" just is not happening as a successful film. Did M. Night really think a movie with the wind blowing trees and grasses would be frightening? Or that the addition of music as a character with the wind would be ominous enough? Perhaps it is with Mark Wahlberg that he expected the movie to be scary. After all, Wahlberg is noted for his intense acting and those serious facial contortions. One scene shows a side view of his face all screwed up. All I could think was how deeply creased his forehead would one day be! A scary movie should not allow me to think that!

However, one of the few really scary parts occurred when the greenhouse guy was in the scene. First, he tells us that plants respond to human voices (true, long-time studies have confirmed this) and that they can respond negatively as well--deep foreshadowing! After the close-up of his misaligned facial features, I fully expected this dude to be hit with neurotoxins and go beserk. Didn't happen. Red herring!

Another really scary part involved the old woman living in isolation, who revealed herself to be beserk without help of neurotoxins. Maybe that was M Night's point: Nature needs to help along the deletion of unsavory human beings, especially including Average Joe (the construction site jumpers--it is no telling what they have done to the plant world!!), but also the truly insane (the old woman who wisely chose to live in the safety of isolation).

I'm going to leave the last three months alone. I could tear into the problems there, too.

Now the positive: Some of these comments are just the reverse of my negative ones. For example, the addition of Wahlberg in the film was a plus because of his intensity. He pretty much makes the whole plant thing believable--well, almost believable. I was even convinced his and Alma's love stopped the neurotoxins. Actually, because of the mystery entwined throughout the story, there is no reason not to think their love stopped the toxins. In other scenes the galloping fear of toxins seemingly increased the plant rampage.

Overcast skies, wind and music, discordance between words and actions, palpable fear, Wahlberg's panic attack, the Hitchcock-like house and old woman--all lent themselves to an increasing sense of unease to dis-ease. The film does work in some ways.

I leave further arguments to others.

Let me preface by saying I'm not a troll that 1-Stars movies lightly. But this? It plays out like a parody of those old 1950s movies, before things like film-acting and special effects were invented (just kidding...uh...somewhat...).

Its been a looooong time since I've seen actors phone in their performances like Wahlberg and Leguizamo have done here. NO, WAIT! Tim Allen in ZOOM, yeah, its about that speed.

Truth is, though, when things fall apart, I'm a "blame the director" type of viewer (but come on guys, didn't you watch the dailies???). Fascinatingly misdirected by Shymalan, you will swear you're watching a student film. And I liked everything he did up 'til Lady in the Bathtub.

Beware: Zooey's facial expressions aren't for the faint of heart.

Someone save M. Night Shymalan from himself. For a man who insists on writing, producing and directing his own movies, he's digging an early grave for his career as a filmmaker and "The Happening" has breached the six-foot mark for his burial. Sporting a lousy script and lousy performances to boot, Shyamalan's much talked-about first R-rated film is a travesty of filmmaking that deserves no better than a 30% rating. If it were a tomato, it'd be pretty darn rotten.

The film begins in the early morning hours in Central Park. People are milling about, casually strolling, going about their business. Two young women sit on a bench chit-chatting when one of them hears a shrill scream and turns her head in the direction of the sound. What she begins to see after a moderate breeze blows through are people suddenly frozen in their tracks, still as statues, an act that mirrors that of a real-life coordinated event once performed in NY's own Grand Central Station (and I have to wonder whether the film was somehow conceived from that). As she turns to her friend Claire to tell her what she sees, her friend begins mumbling incoherently and slowly removes the hairpick from her tightly wound chignon, deliberately stabbing herself in the neck.

From there, we are taken to a construction site three blocks away at 8:39 am, only six minutes into the future from the strange occurrence at Central Park. A body drops from a fatal height and several foremen rush to his aid, only to witness several more men fall to their death. We are then scooted along to a small high school in Pennsylvania where science teacher Elliott Moore (Wahlberg) is giving an animated lecture at 9:45 am. He is suddenly pulled aside by the school principal and taken to a room where the entire faculty hears of the strange events in New York. The American media assumes at first it is some sort of biochemical terrorist attack, due to the fact that only major cities are being targeted while small towns remain safe. This theory is quickly busted when small towns suddenly fall prey, the safe zones growing smaller and smaller as Elliott, his wife Alma (Deschanel) and fellow teacher and close friend Julian (Leguizamo) try to find a haven from this unseen and presumably unstoppable force.

"The Happening" glows with promise in its first ten minutes but withers quickly after, leading its audience into a deep dark abyss of disappointment. At a tight 1 hour and 30 minutes, the film is still agonizingly long, what with its laughable scientific theories and hackneyed performances. Wahlberg and Deschanel embarrass themselves time and time again, but I have to wonder whether it's really their fault. Is it due to Shyamalan's joke of a screenplay or his poor direction? These actors are better than this and their other films are proof of it. Leguizamo is the only semblance of a saving grace, making the most with what little he's got. The rest of the cast come and go, largely unknown and largely insignificant still.

Bottom line: There isn't much more to say about "The Happening" except that it ain't happening, if you get my drift. Feel free to watch it and formulate your own opinion if you wish, but don't say you haven't been warned.

The sixth sense was an absolute masterpiece, and that fact still makes me give any M. Night Shyamalan (Shy) movie a chance. However Shy's movies have gotten progressivly worse, culminating with this atrocity.

Reason No. 1 this movie was bad. Acting
Who can forget Haley Joel Osment's haunting portrayal in The Sixth Sense or that of Toni Collette, who played his mother, or Bruce Willis in arguably his best role? Zooey Deschanel was awful. I have seen better acting in high school plays. John Leguizamo was completely under utilized. Whalberg did the best he could with bad dialog.

Reason No. 2 this movie was bad. The Script was Horrible
Shy tries to give the movie a basis in science but his logic is impossible to follow. Nothing about the major plot points make any sense. For example, A train stops in the middle of nowhere becasuse they have lost contact with "everyone". How does a national train system lose contact, when we have been told the event is localized to the northeast U.S. and cell phones and national media coverage are still running? The premise that plants were releasing a toxin into the air was interesting but it was never fully developed. There was no shocking reveal at the end, no payoff (like sixth sense or the village), just some lame eco babble about the planet sending us a message.

To sum up.
The dialogue is weak and directly impacts the performance of the actors. The suspense never really mounts and although there is some disturbing imagery there are absolutely no scare moments. The story is nonsensical and never goes anywhere. This is not even a renter.

The Happening is the story of a couple, teacher Elliott More (played by Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (played by Zooey Deschanel), who wake up one day to find that the east coast of the United States is under some sort of event/happening/terrorist attack. They flee the city via train, trying to escape this happening, and this is where the movie takes off.

I have to admit, I liked the first half of this film, the buildup wasn't bad, and the script was pretty good. But then somewhere near the middle, during a scene where the protagonists exited a train, the movie went off the rails.

The last half of this film was a huge disappointment. The happening seemed to attack everyone but the lead characters, and the movie turned into a spoof of itself. The ending was flat, and you are left with an emotionless feeling; a sense of "why did I watch this" washes over you.

Unlike many people who reviewed The Happening, I am a fan of M. Night. I loved Signs, Unbreakable and Lady In The Water. But The Happening is not cut from the same mold. The script, especially the dialog, are horrendous and read about as hokey as it gets.

Rent before you buy this movie.

My least favorite of the M. Night Shyamalan movies. This story was a
sad waste of acting talent, a very solid cast was assembled. The first
part of the film shows promise, with humans affected by a possible bio-
hazzard strike. People start dying off in the eastern cities, no one
knows why. Panic and paranoia set in and it looks like something from I
Am Legend. A pocket of survivors get out and they are divided on what
to do. The final premise is a bit strange, a Man vs. Nature plot. Can
they survive the angered local vegetation?

I saw the rating of this movie but STILL, the concept interested me and curiousity got the best of me so I bought it.

I'm not one to pretend I'm some acting expert and I can usually sit through bad acting but when the entire movie consists of it AS WELL AS awkward dialogue and scenes, then you've got one bad movie. Other reviewers have mentioned the plastic tree scene, and my opinion is that it would have been fine if there had been other "light-hearted" scenes like this to pull you away from the drama then it wouldn't have been so glaring. However, this tree-talking scene was all by itself, therefore making it unnecessary.

I also thought it was stupid that the cause of "The Happening" was explained fairly early in the movie, thus leaving out the fun of the audience having to figure it out along with the characters. What was the point in that!? OK so the farmer reveals his guess and it turns out to be true so you would think that character would have more of an impact in the movie, traveling with the main characters. However this is NOT true of the farmer couple, they really don't have much purpose. This just seemed weird to me because even though he was kooky I thought we'd get to know him! And then he dies off camera! STUPID

Then you have the ridiculous "love" sub-plot of the two main characters which isn't fleshed out very well. YAWN

The premise of the movie seemed so cool, which is why I watched the whole thing, but with bad acting, bad dialogue, no character development, and awkward scenes this movie drowns in its own misery.

I want to say upfront, I'm not an M. Night Shyamalan basher. The Sixth Sense was great, Unbreakable was pretty cool too, and I even thought the Village was OK. But there is no excuse for this poorly executed disaster of a film. The film's concept itself, that plant life weary of humans polluting the planet cause us to spontaneously commit suicide, isn't such a bad one. But the way the story is told, with zero nuance, subtlety, or credibility, completely derails the plot.
Here are the main problems I see with this film:
- bad writing: The dialog is unintentionally idiotic. For example, John Leguizamo's character relates buying train tickets to "that cabbage patch kid craze." Oh yeah the one that happened like 25 years ago? And we're expected to beleive that Mark Whalberg and Zooey Deschanel bonded over a mood ring, which gets trotted out no less than 3 times in the movie? Why all the stale references? I am old enough to relate to these allusions to pop culture but they distracted me from the plot (maybe that was the point).
- speaking of plot, its trajectory stalls after about 20 minutes. People start offing themselves all over New York, then Boston, then other major North Eastern US cities. People try to escape from said cities. I can get on board with that. But when they start running around rural Pennsylvania when the trains just stop (they can't communicate with ANYONE?!), things get absurd. First we meet the middle-aged hippie couple who own a nursery and inexplicably invite some unknown survivors into their car. Then there is the high-strung military recruit who serves no purpose but to carry a gun with which infectees shoot themselves. Then a boarded up house with gun-toting yokels becomes a convenient way to dispatch the uneeded teenage companions of our heroes. But my favorite is the inexplicably raving lunatic Mrs. Jones played by Betty Buckley. She lives alone, grows her own food, and has a near-lifesize doll in a bed downstairs. After slapping the child in the group, hollering about theft and murder, her suicide via headbanging a few windows seems par for the course. It's also kind of hilarious too.
- no subtlety at all. This is what really irked me about the film. Everything was so explicitly stated and obvious. For example, during her dinnertime ramblings, and apropos of nothing, Mrs. Jones tells the heroes about her spring house which is connected by a pipe to the main house to facilitate communication. Gee I wonder if they'll be using that in the near future? Well of course they do! Then towards the end, after the "happening" abruptly comes to a halt, when a character wonders aloud if this was just a warning from Nature and if this could happen again. Next scene - mon dieu! the trees in Paris attack! What about some nuance? What about leaving some things unsaid (or unfilmed) to let the audience fill in the blanks?
- bad acting. Nobody shines in this clunker. I sort of felt bad for Mark Whalberg. I could picture him going back to his trailer after a day of shooting and just shaking his head in disbelief. He's pretty unconvincing as a gentle-soul science teacher. As for Zooey Deschanel, I honestly thought her character had a mental problem after her first scene. Her delivery and expressions just never seem to fit with what the scene calls for.
But here is what REALLY grinds my gears with this "happening:" people still compare Shyamalan to Alfred Hitchcock! That is just wrong. Hitchcock was a master at telling a story both through dialog and visuals. He built moods and created layers of subtlety that immersed audiences in his unique vision. Whether M. Night Shyamalan did likewise with the Sixth Sense is debatable, but he certainly has NOT done so with The Happening. His statement that this was meant to be a "B movie" to me is a real cop-out. The only thing The Happening has in common with any B movie is the questionable quality.

I am a huge M. Night Shyamalan fan. Or at least at one point I was. But what's up with this train wreck?

Start's out with great promise, with well filmed New York scenes of unexplained behaviors and suicide in Central Park, and bodies raining from the upper floors of construction projects. A mysterious force or plague, or invisible foe has slipped in among us. But then . . .

Things morph into a series of bad acting performances, stupid scientific speculation, and ends up awkwardly unresolved.

I seriously consider if lead actress Zooey Deschanel wasn't under the influence of some mind altering substance during this filming. (And maybe she began sharing it with the director??). It is so obvious that I thought her behavior might be part of the story, but, nah . . . it was just BAD ACTING. I could have done better, And I'm not an actor. I'm not even a female. And Mark Walhberg is better than this. He must have been in agony when he viewed the screening.

As bad as this was, I would still probably go out and rent "The Happening 2" just to see the ending . . . because this film didn't have one. Thumbs down.

I've always been a fan of Shyamalan's style of filmmaking (crisp long take, deep focus shot; sparse edits; and a reliance on silence), even though I've not been a fan of all of his films. My reasons for liking "The Happening" probably have to do with the fact that my expectations were so low when I first saw it because 1) The reviews were so bad, and 2) I despised his last two films "The Village" and "Lady in the Water." I was surprised to find how much of the film didn't suck.

1) Cinematography/editing/music

There were a number of scenes that were actually very well photographed and edited. The opening scene in Central Park and at the construction site were very well done (my sister, who hated the movie, even said the construction site scene was creepy). I thought John Leguizomo's last scene was very effective, what with the single long take of the jeep crashing into the tree and Leguizomo emerging from the vehicle, sitting on the road, and slicing his wrists. I wasn't sure at all how they accomplished that in one single take, and I enjoyed learning how they did it in the behind the scenes documentary.

And I just LOVED the musical score by James Newton Howard. The opening credits tune was quite chilling, as was the piece where the woman in the end rammed her head into the window. From a purely technical perspective, I thought the movie was very well done.

2) The Premise

I actually liked the premise. It was nutty, audaciously so, and I got a kick out of it.

3) The screenplay

Needed some work. I did not like the dialogue between Elliot and Alma in the train station. It was actually better in the film's original draft. Instead of Ms. Zooey whining: "I don't like to put my feelings out there for people to see. I'm not that type of persooooon," the original draft had her glare at Wahlberg and whisper: "We should finish talking about this first before you ask other people's opinions." Less dialogue, much more effective.

There were also some glaring plot holes too big to ignore. For example, when the main characters get stuck at the intersection with a large group of people (in a heavily forested area, no less), nothing happened to anyone in the group. It isn't until they break up into two seperate groups that "The Happening" takes effect. Later on we learn that large groups set off the toxin, so why is it the toxin didn't affect anyone when they were all stuck in the intersection? Why did it wait until they broke into two groups?

On the other hand, there were scenes and characters I did like. I liked the strange man who ran the plant farm ("You like hotdogs, don't you?") and I liked the scene where Wahlberg "forgives" his wife for a little white lie she told him by telling her how he almost bought a "completely superfluous bottle of cough syrup." I liked the scene where Wahlberg cheers up the little girl by letting her try on his beloved mood ring. I liked the scene where Wahlberg and Deschanel talked about their first date during the climax, and when she first tried on the mood ring (I crack up when she says how her color was purple, and what the color actually means).

The screenplay was far from perfect, but there were enough moments that did work that made it worthwhile for me.

4) The Acting

Hit-and-Miss. John Leguizomo turned in the best performance, although he was given little to do. Wahlberg and Deschanel were fine, save for the scene in the train station at the very beginning. It was far from their best work, but it certainly wasn't their worst, either. The only performance that grated the nerves for me was little Ashlyn Sanchez. I liked her in Crash; I did not like her here.

5)Directing

It worked for me. The movie unfolds in a very deliberate pace, as do all of Shyamalan's films, but I thought it never dragged. It is a well made movie, and I did like the atmosphere Shyamalan gives the material. I thought it worked.

Overall:

As far as movies of this genre go, "The Happening" is really not that bad. It's flawed, yes, but it kept me engaged to the very end. While certainly not his best film (that honor still lies with "The Sixth Sense"), it also isn't his worst either ("The Last Airbender" holds that title; now THAT was one of the worst movies of all time!). "The Happening" is a nutty and stylish little thriller and I give it a thumbs up.