It Happens

Rating: 4/10 (14 June 2008)

The non-spoiler part comes first, so if spoiler tags didn't scare you away, read on. I am a fan of Shyamalan's Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs. I thought those, while not necessarily prolific, were very fun. The Village was more of a dud, and Lady in the Water was painful. I was hoping The Happening would be like his earlier works. I was wrong.
The good part of the movie is unsurprisingly, the suspense. MNS crafts it superbly. But the rest of the movie was just bad.
HERE BE THE SPOILERS The characters were not particularly strong -- the acting didn't feel natural (i.e. the girls in the first scene, Wahlberg teaching) and their actions didn't seem sensible. A large part of the story revolved around keeping a small girl alive after her father and mother died from the plants. Wahlberg and his wife take it upon themselves to protect her. Yet for some inexplicable reason, they let her watch people get killed over and over again, and, at Mrs. Jones' farmhouse, they bring her outside where they think the happening will kill them all. They want to be together when they die and the poor girl apparently has to suffer for their renewed love.
My other big problem was the plot and premise in general. Sure, having plants as the baddies sounds like it could be real fun, but the execution of said idea was just poor. At times, it bordered on self-parody (like when the officer and then the taxi driver and then a lady kill themselves in Philadelphia, in succession, with the same gun). And of course, what "the happening" actually is isn't explained (beyond some land equivalent of the red tide, which the plants use as a defense mechanism to protect against careless humans). There's a whole discussion throughout the movie about how science can't account for these certain forces. It's not convincing.
The culmination of all of this is, of course, in the ending, which was pathetic. The plants have rapidly evolved to kill off the pests that are humans, the incompetent and destructive would-be stewards of earth. The very last scene even shows this process happening again. So on one hand, Shyamalan establishes people as irresponsible/bad. Yet at the same time, Wahlberg's wife finds out she's pregnant. There is of course, a happy scene (it's a happy thing, right?) to make sure we as the audience realize that their lives are, for the most part, back to normal. But the next happening and the birth are very conflicting images and point to opposite conclusions. While this is not necessarily bad in concept, the concept is executed horribly.
So if you like Shyamalan, see the movie. If you like good suspense and can trudge through some bad plot to get it, see the movie. But if neither description fits you, heed the adage that (I paraphrase) "crap happens" and avoid at all costs.
4/10