M. Night? What The {bleep!} Happened?!

Rating: 2/10 (2 November 2008)

I have to shamefully admit something here: I'm an M. Night junkie. I love just about everything he's done. Yes, even LADY IN THE WATER, which had a heartfelt message at its core and a great actor (Paul Giamatti) leading the way. And there were at least some creepy creatures in it. Lots of things were "happening." Unfortunately, you can't say the same thing for THE HAPPENING (I've given it the unfortunate new title of "The Unhappening").
Let's see where to begin I guess the story is as bad a place as any First off, if you're going to make a thriller, it needs to be scary. The Happening isn't. The story has an enemy that we never see. And although unseen enemies can be psychologically frightening if done right (a bit caveat), they can be hard to pull off. The simple fact that not only was The Happening's main antagonist(s) not in the least frightening, it was seriously lame and completely unbelievable as to how the main protagonist comes to understand how it's "chasing them." Second problem Acting. Although I'm no die-hard fan of Mark Wahlberg (THE DEPARTED), I have enjoyed previous films with him as a main character. But here he pulls in a very wooden and careless performance. Perhaps the script stymied him, perhaps not. But I think the bad script/story is definitely to blame, because also in the cast were John Leguizamo (ICE AGE) and Zooey Deschanel (FAILURE TO LAUNCH), both of which I consider high prizes in Hollywood and often underused. Their stilted line deliveries ("Don't take my daughter's hand unless you mean it!") and equally wooden performances seem to point toward story problems of epic proportions.
The final stone...
I'll cast the final stone and mention the complete lack of anything approaching a character we can sympathize or identify with. Again, pretty much a script/story problem. People die. They fall off buildings, stab themselves with hair pins, allow themselves to be run over by a riding mower, hang themselves, crash their cars, and die in fairly gruesome fashion (earning the film it's first R rating for M. Night). And I think this is where he screwed up. He must've equated gruesomeness with theatrical tension, but that wasn't the case. There needs to be a human element to the story and up until now, M. Night has been able to deliver it.
But here, it just ain't "happening."