Movie Review: The Happening (2008)

M Night Shyamalan wrote and directed the phenomenal The Sixth Sense, which is in a lot of people’s best movies list. He also wrote and directs Unbreakable, which is on MY best movies list. After these movies he came up with Signs with mixed reviews, then The Village, then things started going down…

Just a few years ago M Night was revered as one of the best new filmmakers, now with all the press attention he’s getting about being misunderstood and the steadily depreciating quality of his movies, he’s slowly turning into Hollywood’s greatest hack, not even he saw this twist ending coming.

The Happening is MNS’s sixth film. This movie is his first R rated movie (due to graphic violence and intense scenes) and was supposed to be his redemption from the box office shortcomings of his two efforts. It starts with an occurrence in New York’s Central Park, people suddenly stopping in their tracks and then killing themselves. The government and the media immediately call it a terrorist attack. Panic ensues. We follow Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) a Pennsylvania schoolteacher and his wife Alma(Zooey Deschanel). As they go with the torrential flow of people trying to evacuate the perimeter of ‘attack’ they see themselves dodge the presence of corpses in the street, watch their group-mates execute themselves and knock into a couple of houses. No explanation or clues are offered as to what may be causing the strange phenomena, but don’t worry M. Knight is going to dazzle us with his expert storytelling and show us how all of this is going to come full circle…

…NO!

Here’s the thing, you come into an MNS movie with expectations. Okay, lets say I ‘lessened’ my expectations due to the fact that his last 2 movies have been disappointing. At least I expected an explanaition as to what was happening through the whole freaking movie. He sets up the entire movie on this wind that when hit by it, you go crazy and hit yourself. People offer theories. Plants? Terrorism? Nuclear power plants? Fear? I came up with theories myself. But in the end, the explanation is… “There are things that occur in nature that just cannot be explained!” WOW! Why didn’t I think of that! Looks like we got a winner here M. Night! Nobody saw that coming!

I once wrote a script myself, I was 7. It was 2 pages long. I thought it was better than this crap.

Aside from the asinine plot, the acting was terrible. Everybody acted like they were in a community play. WTF? Mark Wahlberg? You were nominated for an Academy Award! What happened?

I have officially lost faith in M Night.



Rocketboy Rating: No stars (yes you heard it right!)