Preachy "thriller" fails to thrill

Rating: 1/10 (11 October 2008)

I will admit that I have enjoyed a couple of M. Night Shyamalan films... The Sixth Sense was fantastic - then it all pretty much went downhill from there. Unbreakable... ridiculous; Signs... tolerable, but still not great; The Village... SEVERE disappointment; Lady In The Water... Seriously? Come ON! But compared to The Happening, Lady In The Water should have been an Oscar contender.
Not only were the performances completely lackluster (Mark Wahlberg... whiney... Zooey Deschanel... irritating), but the story line was absolutely absurd & COMPLETELY preachy! Let me get this straight... the TREES are communicating with other vegetation & in order to protect themselves against the beast that is man they start releasing neurotoxins that rids humanity of the will to live??? Wow. The kicker is near the end, after "the event" has ended; some professor is seen on television telling society that: "this is just a warning" & some business about how we're destroying our planet & now Mother Nature won't stand for it anymore. Again - wow. That's not preaching at all - I swear! All this combined with somewhat shocking images of MANY people killing themselves in grotesque fashions (In one scene a man turns on an industrial sized lawn mower, puts it into gear & lays down in front of it.) makes for one HORRID film.
Had I been unfortunate enough to pay to see The Happening in theatres, I would have asked for my money back on the premise that it was 91-minutes of my life I'll never have back again.