I was beyond disappointed

Rating: 1/10 (16 June 2008)

Let me start with the fact that I love Night. I love his movies and the camera angles he uses and just his overall technique on his previous films. Signs was good, and I personally enjoyed the Village very much, and then Unbreakable was very good in my opinion. I even enjoyed Lady in the Water, though I admit it was not a very well done film. Yet note that nevertheless, I have always enjoyed a Night film.
Until now. The Happening is probably one of the worst films I have ever seen. The acting is terrible and over the top. Blue eyes other there made me wish for her to die just so her aggravating acting would stop. The movie is not even scary. There is one time total I jumped during the movie. Once. During a "thriller". Me and my girlfriend, both of us Night fans, couldn't even think of more than a handful of really excellent shots in the film (I admit that we may be wrong here and distracted by how bored we were to notice any other nice shots). The shots and camera angles that Night uses is one of the big reasons I love his movies, and I won't bother to list here some of my favorites that he has used before.
Just note that if you go to see this movie hoping for something a little better than Lady, you will be disappointed. I hoped for something akin to The Village or Signs, and wished to leave the movie 30 minutes in (but I was resilient and stayed the course). It took me three days to come back to this site and write this review. I couldn't believe what I had seen and wanted to forget. But I can't. I keep thinking how he could have done a better job if he had just worked a little harder to write the script. Its a small wonder that he had trouble selling the idea. The script should have been reworked multiple times.
The dialogue was awful, the shots were nothing special, and the only worthy actors didn't get enough screen time. Night, what were you thinking?