M. Night, stay with PG-13 movies.

Rating: 2/10 (3 September 2008)

I decently liked M. Night in the past, but I'm far from a fan-boy, so no matter what he did I can't be too disappointed with it because of hype or respect I have for the man himself. The reason so many reviews are so bad is because the viewer either hates or loves M. Night and they're opinions of him take or add to their opinion of the movie.
For what it was, I disagree with people who say that it needed a killer or suspense or whatever. The story itself held up just fine, and only bordered on silly slightly (though I could see how some would think it's ludicrous). Also, all the fan-boys who claim the movie was "original" and "deep" are insane. The basic ideamass suicide with unknown causehas been done in countless Stephen King novels: The Stand and Cell are the two on the top of my head. *Spoilers* The idea of trees causing this has been done in countless old sci-fi movies like The Forbidden Planet and such. Even the maniac old in the end reminded me of a dumbed-down version of Hoit in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. *End spoilers* I can't name an original idea in the entire plot. As for people who defend Night by saying: "People hate this movie because it is too deep, and they want more popcorn-flick thrillers!" are, once again, very wrong. The Happening takes on the same old global warming banter you've heard for years. Deep? Hardly. Even the whole "faith vs. fear" meaning Night implies in his interviews has been done so many times it's almost a clichénot that the movie showed that meaning very strongly in the first place, if at all.
It is also falsely advertised as being a violent/gory film. The head shot suicides are cut-off scenes, and any more unpractical suicide scenes are not shown. The most graphic scene shows a severed arm, but it is only on screen for a second. How it earned an R-rating I'll never understand, especially when Cloverfield showed just about as much blood and got a PG-13 rating. Also, any hope of being disturbed by the images, even though they're relatively gore-less, is minimal. There was a ditzy 12-year-old girl sitting next to me and she was laughing as some of the "disturbing" scenes took place.
I'm not sure if the acting was terrible as much as the characters just looked and acted stupid. You can defend that by saying it was how they were meant to be, but it simply was not pleasant to watch people being so silly in a movie that isn't meant to be black comedy.
But in the end I think that's how it's taken. Black comedy. The opening 20 minutes had me and the younger (and more desensitized) audience unintentionally laughing at the cut-off scenes and the cheesy reactions to deaths. The end is very well done . . . until the last five minutes when it uses an unrealistic TV broadcast to give us the information that should have been shown.
Now my biased opinion: I'm glad this movie didn't stoop to the wholehearted clichés that critically acclaimed horror movies like The Decent, The Orphanage, and The Mist did. But the lack of advertised gore and the poor storytelling just ruined it for me. Worth my $5? I think I got more satisfaction for my money's worth writing this review than I got out of the movie.
It won't rock your world, but it's better than wallowing in boredom. Take it or leave it.
2/10