What happened to M. Night??

Rating: 3/10 (14 June 2008)

He did it with "Lady in the Water". And now he did it with "The Happening". You walk out of the theater saying "what the hell was that?" M. Night has hit his peak and is now on the decline.
And his big twist at the end of "The Happening" could have been seen a mile a way. It was the same old formula that most horror movies use. The threat appears to be gone, but then reappears at the end with a new set of characters. It's been done countless times.
M. Night is known for his clever twist endings. (WARNING - Spoilers for other M. Night's movies) Bruce Willis is really dead in "The Sixth Sense", Sam Jackson's character is Willis' arch rival who created all those disasters in "Unbreakable", "The Village" was set in present day. These were all really well done. But this half ass attempt of a "twist" was a joke. Who knows? Maybe M. Night has just given up and went for the predictable ending.
And what was with the acting? At times, Mark Walberg felt like a dopey cartoon character. I thought I was watching Dirk Diggler. Walberg needs to stick to the tough guy roles, that's his strong suit. Not the dorky high school science teacher. And not to generalize, but mostly everyone else wasn't very convincing in their roles either.
The story had a good premise but could have been executed better. Walberg suspected that the plants and trees were the cause of all the unexplained deaths. So he says "I know, let's go hide in the woods!" Positives, there were some. The scenes where people did themselves in were good for some scares. Also when they came across those guys that hung themselves made me jump a bit. But overall not so good.
For Night's next feature, maybe he should hire a writer and get a competent casting director. Or better yet, he could revise The Twilight Zone or Tales From the Darkside and do half hour episodes on late night TV. I'd watch it.