Great Thriiler w/o character.

Rating: 7/10 (15 June 2008)

The Happening, was chilling, effective and misfired. The Happening delivered a fine and effective thriller with intense and creepy scenes, yet the the actual characters were miscast, poorly written, and empty. It's funny that Night specifically wrote the role of Elliot for Wahlberg, which gives one of his worst performances, if not the worst. I couldn't take him seriously as a science teacher, he seemed tacked on, his lines about science seemed very contrived and fake. That was probably the biggest misfire, because the antagonist is based and validated by Elliots lines, so when we can't take the teacher seriously how are we gonna take the event seriously? That's why people were never fully intrigued about the science and interpretation of the horrific event. However, the biggest and most tragic flaw about this movies is that Night never gave this movie character. The movie was simply a thriller with no good story. In fact this is what Night has derailed in his past two movies. He has the gift of genuine suspense, but this time he writes an empty story with empty characters. If this movie had a moving story about a family on the run, and a credible main character, this would be up there with the top disaster movies. However, that won't happen.
7/10