The Happening...not so happening

Rating: 4/10 (21 June 2009)

To say that I like M. Knight Shyamalan movies is an understatement if ever there was one. I have loved every one of this man's films from The Sixth Sense on--he made two movies prior, but I haven't seen either yet. Unbreakable is one of my favorite movies of all time and Signs is one of my most often viewed; I've lost count of how many times I've seen it.
So it would be safe to assume that I was going to give The Happening a look-see. I've been waiting for it for a few months now. My hopes had risen quite high as they tend to do and I didn't try to rein them in because Shyamalan hasn't let me down yet. There is a first time for everything.
This movie has an interesting premise. Something is causing people to do themselves bodily harm in localized areas of the Northeast. The ways in which these people harmed them selves were bizarre, gruesome, disturbing, and tended to result in their deaths. The opening scene was an attention grabber but from the moment the two girls on the park bench started talking I started thinking, "I wish they had gotten better actors." I didn't stop thinking that for the duration of the movie.
After you get past the over-the-top shocks and the intriguing set up, there really isn't much to the movie. It is all plot, no story, no character--though there are several feeble attempts at developing a couple of them--no emotion. Nothing but watching people die in creative ways, and some of the suicide just seem out of place or to run too long. This movie couldn't even make mass suicide disturbing, only curious.
Shyamalan has, prior to this movie, been more of the Hitchcock school of film making. That is what you don't see is scarier than what you do...for the most part. But in this movie he chooses to show almost everything. It was an interesting change in the beginning, but became an odd choice later for me. Why bludgeon us over the head with a series of suicides when the scene with periodic gun fire in the distance gets the point across so much better. The most suspenseful scene in the movie is when a woman affected by "The Happening" circles her house out of view of the camera stalking Mark Walberg's character, who waits in fear inside. The camera simply pans a wall tracking her progress behind it, but it was a great moment. It makes the death scenes just seem to be indulgences, schlock, cheap thrills.
Another problem I have with this movie is the "Happening" itself. I actually like the idea of it, people inexplicably begin killing themselves en masse. The key word being "inexplicably." When you are told in the movie halfway through why what is happening is happening, and are told by a crazy man with an affinity for hotdogs, and the explanation is a lame as it is, then it kind of loses something. Mystery is good. But again Shyamalan decided to hide nothing. Let's talk about the acting some more. It was...off, let's say. I like Mark Walberg. I really like John Leguizamo. I don't have a problem with Zooey Deschanel. But no one ever clicked. Half the time it didn't even seem like the characters were responding to each other. It was just odd to watch. This movie was just odd.
Now, I do have a theory on why this movie turned out the way it did, and I may be grasping at straws to salvage it in someway for myself because I did wanted it to be good. It came across as very cheesy almost jokey, but there weren't very many jokes in it. The few that there very good, like anything the two boys that showed up later in the movie did or said. There were also odd plot contrivances abound. There was the cooky old man that figured out why what was happening was happening. There was the cooky old lady cloistered away from society that offered help, but at a price--she had the greatest line of the film by the way: "I see you eying my lemon drink." There was the fragile couple growing strong through the tragedy.
Then you have the general light tone of the film and the beware-or-this-could-happen-to-you message and the happy, but not so happy, ending. All this lead me to my first theory. And that is that Shyamalan was paying homage to the '50s sci-fi B-movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Blob, Them and others come to mind. I don't know what Shyamalan was thinking when he made this, but The Happening had that hokey feel to it and the plot followed the lines drawn by movies that came before it. I don't know.
My second theory is that this was just a bad movie.
I did not like this movie. I do not recommend that anyone see it, unless they are just going to go see some innovative death scenes. I won't say that there are no redeeming aspect to the film. It still looks like a Shyamalan movie. The cinematography is beautiful and the shot selection is nice. There are a few very suspenseful scenes and the show moves along at a good clip. I just wish that the show was worth watching. It is not.