One of the WORST!

Rating: 2/10 (10 July 2008)

Let me be the one to conclude this movie with just one simple phrase - THE WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR! And I mean it - i've watched a lot of garbage this year - I repeat A LOT - but this thing-of-a-movie is by far the most idiotic film ever created from a human being. I even wonder how was it even produced and released to the cinemas so the innocent viewers must PAY MONEY to watch this crap. The bad things in this movie are so many that they're the only thing that's really SCARY and SHOCKING in it. Let's just talk about the little thing the artists liked to call "acting". The "so called" acting in this film is so pathetic that makes the characters look like total morons. Mark Whalberg and Zoey Dechanel are so one-dimensional and dull as the lead actors that after 20 minutes you just didn't care any more about they're characters and whether they'll live or die. It's quite disturbing actually to see well known actors in a mainstream movie of a famous director to act like dumb children in a school play. And what about the story. There is nothing here - NOTHING. No suspense, no horror, no thrills, even no real climax and explanation. Not to mention that the trademark of all M. Night's movies - THE TWIST - is also missing in this one. Not to mention that the event that is HAPPENING in the movie is basically so absurd that's even hilarious. Also - it reminds a lot of a story, written by Steven King, only "The Happening" is much worst. I can't even believe that I've sit trough the whole movie, without killing myself. There is NOTHING that drives the storyline - no real emotions, no real relationships, just plain and artificial reactions between the characters and god-awful stupid dialogs. It's like watching a serious movie which eventually feels like parody and you end up laughing at the whole thing. Absurd and hilarious are quite well said descriptions to the entire script. Further more - the well known cinematography and visual style of the old Shyamalan's films which we all anticipated are just gone. The directing is bad or mediocre at best. There are only a couple of scenes that even reminds us of Shyamalan. I know that the writing AND producing AND directing a movie is a tough job but one director's ego should not be a reason for promising projects to be presented like some Uwe Boll movies. Was that laziness or lack of creativity - you tell me. The only thing good in this movie is the music. It's effective and it really flows with the scenes. James Newton Howard gives us the only thing with which this movie is even watchable - his music score and it's great. But yet again even the good music is degraded by everything else. After all the high hopes, M. Night embarrassed himself utterly with this flick. It should have been a great and chilling thriller but instead it's something I really don't want to talk about any more. The director said that he made it to be a B-movie. Well, I think the B-Movies ARE the future for him, so good luck with THAT.