Great idea for a movie poorly realized and acted even worse!

Rating: 2/10 (3 July 2009)

I must say I was really looking forward to seeing this movie. M. Night Shyamalan made me a fan back when I first watched "The Sixth Sense" (one of my favorite movies of all time, and one of my favorite movies about ghosts), "Unbreakable" was a unique and awesome movie, and I enjoyed "Signs".
Then he made a stinker called, "The Village". Another unique idea, decently acted but it just did not have the same impact as his previous films. Afterwords he nearly loses me as a fan altogether with, "Lady In the Water." (One of the biggest problems is that he decided to write himself into the movie and basically ends up being the savior. That is a bit vain!) Well acted, interesting characters, but poorly executed. If his films were a roller coaster, it would be one that started at the top and now is at the very bottom.
So finally, his chance at redemption comes to theaters, and his first R-rated film to boot. The Happening is finally happening! The first half hour is the movie is good, and interesting.
Then, like his movie quality, it all goes downhill from there! The acting? Unbelievably bad! Mark Wahlberg, whom I have always liked, is definitely miscast and his acting is painful to watch. Then you have Zooey Deschanel who is basically just there to look gorgeous and smile a lot. You never get the sense that she is actually in danger, and she is another person I am a fan of that just seems like she is out of her game and just along for the ride. John Leguizamo (think they decided to cast everyone who has names that are hard to say or pronounce) is the only exception, he plays a slightly different role than usual and does a decent job. Not that he did an exceptional job, but decent enough and would have been fine had everyone else been up to par! Not sure who is at fault, but I have seen all 3 do much better jobs elsewhere.
The extras? No better but some of them show up the higher profile actors. This hurts everything in the movie and takes away from the movie. You are so stunned by the acting quality it is hard to pay attention to much else, besides except Zooey Deschanel (looks, not acting!)
Besides the acting, how about the movie? Unique idea, poorly realized and the script is an abomination.
Not sure what his next film will be like, but yeah this one was maybe the most disappointing of all of his movies. I still have hopes he can bring us at least something as good as "Signs" and maybe to the level of "Unbreakable" but I think a "Sixth Sense" level is out of his reach anymore.
2 out of 10 is all I can give this, as there are worse movies that came out, but not much worse!