B-Movie + Philosophy = this nice and entertaining movie

Rating: 7/10 (3 July 2008)

The Happening is a very nice movie. Here Night M. Shyamalan did not his best ("Signs" is my favourite and "The Sixth Sense" is a little masterpiece), but he did a very nice and entertaining thriller movie. Like all his other works, Shyamalan starts with one of the fundamental philosophical questions of this time and he tries to answer with a B-Movie theme. In "Sings" the fundamental question was "Does God exists?" and the B-Movie theme was an alien's invasion. In this case, the fundamental question is: "Is man the cancer of our planet?" and the B-Movie theme is an unstoppable pandemic deadly disease. The plot is a typical pandemic movie, but this is not a B-Movie at all: complex characters, realistic situations and shocking scenes of massive suicides give great depth to this movie. There is something wrong with acting: all actors (Zooey Deschanel, Mark Wahlberg and all the others) are always astonished, sometimes they act as alienated people. This is a characteristic of all Shyamalan's works, but in this movie it could be a bit disturbing. Shyamalan creates suspense. And he re-creates very well a desperate situation where humanity is struggling against an unknown, invisible and very powerful enemy. In this struggle there are no heroes, but only victims or lucky people, like in ordinary reality. And all this stuff is really, really entertaining! His plot is very coherent with the fundamental question "Is man the cancer of our planet?". He answers in the very end of the movie. Personally I don't agree with Shyamalan's answer. But I don't want to reveal it. Go to theater and watch it!