complete garbage

Rating: 1/10 (16 June 2008)

My oh my this movie is BAD. I decided to write my thoughts when I encountered too many reviews from people who were saying things like "cmon, its not that bad" or "M. Night back on track", or my favorite "people who hate this movie just don't get it." Get what? The only thing I got from this ridiculous mess was 2 hours stolen from my life. I went into the film fresh, not reading anything about it or paying too much attention to the previews. The only thing I knew about "The Happening" is that it was Ding Dong's first R rated film. (Ding Dong is what my girlfriend and I call the director or, Shama-lama-ding-dong in its non-truncated version). Anyway, back to the movie. So ding dong has his first R rating. What will that mean for the film itself? I had no idea and I wanted it that way.I saw something so bad all I could do at the end was laugh and let my girlfriend know what a piece of crap we had seen."That was ass" were my exact words. Here are my reasons why.
1. The plot was completely ridiculous. Plants getting even with us by releasing a toxin that makes you kill yourself? Oh my. Ding Dong lost me with that one.
2. The acting was just awful. All parties are guilty. All. Terrible.
3. This next point just eats away at me the more I think about it. The R rating thing was a marketing tool I think. This must have been touched on in other posts or comments. Think about the violence. The man laying down in front of a lawn mower (although we never see anything too graphic we get to hear the squishing, chewing sounds), the woman in the beginning jabbing a hair needle in her neck, the old woman in the end playing wrecking ball with her head through glass windows. To me, it all seemed cheap. Like ding dong was saying "look at this shocking, gruesome violence I can throw at you now that my movie is R rated". And any substance the movie had was lost for me in those moments. The scene where the kids get wasted by the shotgun at that house had me almost laughing out loud. I mean talk about cheap thrills. What is and was supposed to be horrible and shocking turns out to be nothing more than MNS shaking his R rated butt at us. "See, kids die in my R rated movies". The scene did not add anything to the movie except getting those horrible child actors off the screen. And speaking of things that added nothing to the movie, I won't even comment on the old lady at the house in the end. Absolutely embarrassing.
All in all, one of the worst movies I have seen in a really long time. Avoid at all costs.