The Happening

Oct 6, 2010 Edit: For some reason my entire review didn't post, leaving out important paragraphs, etc. Fixed now.

Oh my god, what an awful, awful movie!

The Happening, which was written, co-produced and directed by M Night Shyamalan (explains a lot, doesn't it?), is billed as a "thriller", though to call it this seems a fair bit of a stretch.  There's nothing really thrilling about it.  Of course, i don't think this is the kind of movie that lends itself well to categories.  It's not suspenseful, it's not comedic, it's not dramatic - it's pretty much devoid of any kind of entertainment value one could derive from seeing a movie.

I guess if it has to be classified as anything, one could classify it as horror, since i'm literally horrified to know that a movie like this could make $163M!

What, not scary enough?  Well, let me remind you: so long as movies like The Happening continue to be financially successful, Hollywood will keep on making them.

The general plot of The Happening is that some mysterious neurotoxin is being released all across the eastern United States.  The slightest exposure to this neurotoxin causes the victims to engage in deliberate acts of self-harm, like jumping off buildings, cutting their wrists or watching M Night Shaymalan movies, leaving the survivors as soulless automatons, devoid of personality or charisma.

Ok, so the latter isn't really a symptom of the neurotoxin, but it is the unfortunate (and perpetual) condition of our protagonist, high school science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg).  The closest thing poor Elliot Moore ever comes to having an emotion is when he snaps at a bunch of extras for not giving him a moment to think.

You know, i'm starting to see a bit of a pattern with Shyamalan's movies - and i don't mean the whole "twist ending" bit.  This one is much more prevalent and far more insidious.  Remember how Mel Gibson's family acted in Signs?

"Creepy vacant stares and slow paced monotone conversations are the norm..."

Yeah, well... The Happening is exactly the same.  The closest anyone comes to showing emotion is when they go into a zombie-like trance and kill themselves.

The female protagonist (Zooey Deschanel) is even stated to be someone who "doesn't show her emotions", which is pretty convenient for a character in an M Night Shyamalan movie.  Of course, i'm going to give Zooey Deschanel the benefit of the doubt and assume she knows how to emote, but that it's just simply not part of her job description.

(I picture Shyamalan on a directors chair shouting at his actors, "Less emotion! Less!  What are you trying to do?  Bring me to tears?")

Of course if you can somehow look past the incredibly lifeless acting, what you'll get is some of the most impressively bad writing imaginable.  Awe inspiringly bad writing.  I'm talking Hackers bad.

For example, at one point in the movie, Elliot Moore is trying to figure out the cause of the neurotoxin. In order to do this he starts spouting off lines like "isolate the variables" and "design an experiment" to himself in a hushed whisper (because he's a science teacher, remember?).

Um... why? Who does that? Who stands around vocalizing pointless phrases related to their profession in order to help them come to conclusions? Nobody! And that's really the worst part about it, isn't it. The dialogue isn't there to explain what Wahlberg's character is thinking. It's just there to let the audience know that Wahlberg's character is thinking (an alien concept to most, i know).

The worst part is, that's not even the worst part of the movie. There are so many other bad scenes i could waste an entire post just outlining them. But i won't, because that would require me writing out the entire movie scene for scene, followed by a paragraph or two about how stupid it is. Don't get me wrong, i'm sure it would be an improvement on the script. But it still wouldn't be anything anyone would want to read.

Anyways i really don't have anything else i want to say about this movie. Every word i type here is only giving too much credit to a film that should never have been made. But i do want to mention one last thing:

I watched The Happening only recently, but it was originally released in 2008 - Friday the 13th of June, 2008. I'm sure Shyamalan thought this a bit of poignant cleverness on his part, but for the original viewers of the film it'll only serve as a reminder that bad things really can happen on Friday the 13th.