Not much happening

Rating: 1/10 (12 June 2008)

No suspense, no mystery, no story: not much happening in "The Happening". OK, the basic idea of people mysteriously killing themselves seemed almost as promising as "I see dead people" did. But it's not evolved properly. Although you see lots of dead people, you're hardly ever scared. The reason for it all is introduced way to soon, the rest of the movie is people fleeing while reciting awkward dialogue under circumstances that mostly don't make sense. It seems M. Night didn't have anyone cross check his script or if he had, he chose not to pay attention to hints at logical errors. And although it's admittedly hard to do decent acting on lines like "If we must die, I want to be with you", performances of Wahlberg and Deschanel mark a career low. What's most annoying is the omnipresent preachy subtext of the movie, culminating in a sign that reads "You deserve it". Nothing wrong with having an eco-friendly attitude, but if you force it on people that blatantly you probably harm the cause rather than promoting it. So skip this one and spend the money on something nice - you deserve it!