Awful!

Rating: 1/10 (23 June 2008)

Brought to you by M. Night Shyamalan who had the inkling of an idea, pitched it to the studio then realised he had nothing else BUT that idea but made the film with no script, no plot and 1 idea which never turned into anything.
Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel & John Leguizamo are the stars here, but Leguizamo is killed very quickly once "The Happening" starts and is utterly pointless. He is only there to bring the young girl to the group, nothing more.
Alan Ruck also appears in a "blink and you'll miss it" role as the principal of the school were Wahlberg & Leguizamo work as teachers. Basically this is director Shyamalan's incredibly preachy message about how badly we're treating the planet & that we should do more to save plants.
It's that bad an idea that plants have identified humans as their biggest threat and are now emitting toxins that kill them or cause them to kill themselves. All it does it give them a reason to leave New York and get stuck in the countryside where Wahlberg thinks he's figured out what's causing the deaths. He also thinks its to do with the sizes of groups people are in.
Eventually the "Happening" or event as they refer to it on the news ends as suddenly as it started and we're left in the slightly emptier city where Deschanel is clearly pregnant with Wahlberg's baby and Leguizamo's daughter has been adopted by them both.
The film ends (if you can call it an ending) with the same thing happening somewhere in France. Awful film, really weak idea to base it on, it isn't explored enough or explained clearly enough and people are killed off way too easily. Avoid like it's trying to kill you!