It's not what you think- nobody else has said this.

Rating: 7/10 (14 June 2008)

It does not matter what I think of his back catalog. M. Night has done something different in "The Happening", and I believe it should be seen as nobody has seen a Shamylan film before, and certainly not this one.
The trailers for this film made it look very ominous, mysterious, and downright scary. However when watching this film, I'd be surprised if the hairs on your arm stood up even once. There are a handful of tremendously well done scenes, eerily frightening- the construction workers throwing themselves off the building has to be M. Night's best shot in all of his work- however the rest of the film will leave you shaking your head in disbelief.
Why? Because the answer to what exactly is "happening" is presented very early on- in the first half of the movie. It's the plants, emitting a toxin causing humans to commit suicide, exacting their revenge on mankind for their mistreatment at our hands. The rest of the movie follows the main characters as they run through fields and towns, spewing ghastly dialog and witnessing people ending their own lives in disturbing fashions.
So why is the secret given away so quickly? Why the blatantly preachy dialog and ridiculous "save the earth" commentators seen on the televisions? Why isn't it all that frightening or suspenseful? Lets search our options. Did M. Night just flop and make a terrible, un-suspenseful movie with very few frightening sequences? I don't think so. M. Night has proved that he can make a scary movie with plenty of suspense and jump-out-of-your-seat moments. Was the script just awful? Yes and no. With a few exceptions, the script was boring, gave away the secret immediately, and felt way too preachy. So what is the answer? THIS FILM IS A SATIRE. A satire is defined as "the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc. " The Happening seemed to me to be mocking the modern day hysteria over "global warming" or "climate change", what with the "Go Green" movement hitting the accelerator.
I believe that instead of what appears to be a flop due to ridiculous acting, dialog, and overwhelming preachy-ness, M. Night Shamylan has created a masterful satire, brilliantly mocking modern day paranoia. Will anyone else see it like this, or is this even what Shamylan wanted to create? I don't know. Time will tell.