Scifi fans beware

Rating: 3/10 (11 June 2008)

I'm a sci-fi fan and its been a drought for us on original science-based fiction. Everything is a remake, based on a book or comic or a sequel. So it was with that objective in mind, I was eager to see the "The Happening". The premise of this movie had the makings of a top notch science-based movie. Leaving the theater, I am left asking what happened? This was not sci-fi, as the trailers lead me to believe, in even the most liberal use of the genre categorization IMO. Sci-fi fans will be much let down and should not see this movie looking for that element to be developed.
So its not sci-fi, it could still be a good movie right? Well unfortunately it is not. The trailers also made this movie look a bit like Signs, which many people hated but I liked. Signs is all I'm going to say about Shyamalan, I'm not going to get into the "high-brow" critiquing of the director or whatever. I never care about any of that, for me a movie is about entertainment and if its worth my time. For many of you, whether a movie is worth your money is probably also significant (since you pay so much for movies). This movie is not worth your time or money. It wasn't even worth the >US$3 I paid to see it in THX, DLP, DTS, reserved seating, etc and it definitely wasn't worth my time.
Movies, for me, are about story and how well that story is told. Effects, actors and the rest are all elements of telling the story and how they do is ultimately how well the story is told. The only time I was actually into this movie was in the beginning. I actually thought this would be a great movie at that point, but after around 10 minutes or so, that was it. It was then an hour and a couple dozen or so minutes of nothing. I wasn't drawn into the story, there was no air of suspense or tension, there was nothing. I know the approximate time marks because I checked my watch a half dozen times during this movie. I was so disengaged that I suggested to my girlfriend we sneak into the theater's bathroom for some actual entertainment, but she declined :(.
I have to compare this movie a bit to Signs, because that was what I went in thinking this movie would be like. So if you find my review totally off, then this is where the disconnect would be, but I don't believe I am anywhere off base here, as my girlfriend (who I saw the movie with) totally agrees with me. While many people didn't like Signs, I found that it created a nice atmosphere of tension with climaxes and plot elements which kept me involved and engaged. That was totally lacking in this movie. It was more like a superficial attempt to do that, using those jump out and say "boo" elements which are so trite and overused, but lacking anything that set the sage to have those "boo" moments mean something.
I felt that Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel were underwhelming. Knowing Wahlberg's ability I almost can't help but blame other people. However, even with a bad script or poor direction I expected more from Wahlberg. This is one of those bad movies where you expect someone like John Leguizamo to be able to steal the show. Sadly, even he was flat and his character's role was slightly confusing. I wouldn't be surprised if Leguizamo's acting was hampered by his own difficulty with understanding his role in the story.
Instead of a 0, this got a 3 from me because there was some good. The first 10-20 minutes were interesting, there were some really beautiful shots and there was nice use of elemental effects. Nothing worth your time or money though, I wouldn't even recommend this as a rental, it was that bad.