Shyamalan Has Seem to Done it Again!

Rating: 5/10 (18 June 2008)

Let's be honest here; Shyamalan hasn't really done anything spectacular since The Sixth Sense. I actually went into this movie having no prior knowledge of it besides my friend telling me it looked good. I was surprised when I saw that Shyamalan had written, produced, and directed this new feature film. I was also surprised by the fact in the first few minutes a woman stabbed herself in the neck. Yeah.
The first fifteen minutes or so were pretty decent. Entertaining for the most part, but after that, it was pretty downhill from there. I am a big fan of Mark Wahlberg, but through the entire 91 minutes of this film, he didn't seem quite to click with his character. All of the characters seemed quite out of place for one reason or another, and I think that can be blamed on the writing.
First of all, why did there have to be "another man?" Honestly, that was just unnecessary turmoil between the two main characters. Or perhaps it was just a plot to get Shyamalan a part without being too obvious. I absolutely HATED the parenting aspects in this movie. Okay, so there are people all over New York City killing themselves, a supposed terroristic attack, and Jess's mom decides that is the perfect time to leave her family and go get her a doll house?! And then Julian leaves his only daughter to find his wife, thinking, oh!, maybe she might still be alive. No. Why would you do that?! That just frustrated me to no end.
What also frustrated me was the lack of closure and answers to the never ending questions being asked. The movie just kind of ended. Kind of... The question I kept asking myself, my friend, and the movie screen (if it was supposedly the plants) is, "why now? Why not 20 years ago, or a decade from now?" They seemed to try to explain that in the news sequence, but even the person being interviewed had no idea. Of all of the Shyamalan movies I have seen, there has always been a plot twist, which has made most of his movies the only thing that makes them watchable.
The only thing that made The Happening watchable was the amazing direction. There is no doubt that Shyamalan is a fantastic director, but it seems like he has lost his knack for writing.