Too bad

Rating: 4/10 (16 June 2008)

I, like most comments I'd read before this went into "The Happening" as a fan of M. Night Shyamalan's work. Granted, it's pretty obvious his career has been on a steady decline since he blew everyone away with 99's "Sixth Sense", but still somehow his films always have that sense of tension and startling discomfort that very few directors are able to consistently maintain. These techniques (along with obviously one of the great plot twists in recent history) made him such a smash success with Sixth Sense, and also made films like "Unbreakable" and "Signs" oddly enjoyable and totally suspenseful. Even the disappointing "Village" maintained many of these same characteristics making it at least enjoyable until the lame twist of that movie. At first I was hoping to leave "Lady in the Water" totally out of the equation, chalking it up to M. Night trying (and failing) something new, breaking out of his own box he'd created, something that eventually had to be done, at least giving that weird and hardly enjoyable movie a point.
Now, onto "The Happening". The trailer was promising, and that eerie feeling of paranoia and helplessness that made "Signs" so intriguing was back. So I went in with high hopes, especially since I'm also a fan of Wahlberg (who seemed to have improve with every performance leading up to this) and the always good Zooey Deschanel as seemingly capable leads. Everything was going well, until the movie started.
The opening sequence was possibly the highlight of the movie, which is pretty annoying considering none of the film's antagonists are even introduced at this point. Already though the screenplay is evidently forced and for lack of a better word, lame. Laughs were heard all throughout the theater at just the basic dialogue of the movie, whether it be someone who's supposed to be terrified replying "cheese and crackers" or Wahlberg reacting with a 'shocked' "Oh no!" after several people are attacked by this 'happening'.
The actual plot of the movie isn't bad (SPOILERS AHEAD) but it essentially turns from a super-natural horror mystery into a unnecessarily boring and flat chase movie which finds a goofy, bumbling, uncomfortable looking Mark Wahlberg and a detached Zooey Deschanel who seemed like her only true work on this movie was letting M. Night film her (admittingly amazing) eyes in super close ups for half the movie, basically running from maybe-abandoned house to maybe-abandoned house from the big bad toxins in the air. This could have been pulled off much better with characters who we cared about, or at least characters who would react like a real person would in this type of thing. Instead of the total paranoia, shock, and disbelief that made a movie like Cloverfield so popular, we're given ridiculous small talk about how cool hot dogs are. I wish I was kidding.
John Leguizamo's character is totally useless in the movie, and Wahlberg and Deschanel's relationship is so obviously forced that you're almost rooting for one of them to kill themselves then end up together. In fact, the happy ending that at least these two get ends up being cheesy and stupid. Not to mention the huge amount of emphasis put on something so insignificant as a mood ring gets.
You'd think with all of these detractors, at least the gruesome suicide scenes would make this a cool, eerie movie. But no, unfortunately some of these scenes induced as many laughs in the audience as the terrible dialogue did. Aside from the opening sequence (which even itself had terrible dialogue and awful characters you were just couldn't help rooting against) I remember only being creeped out at one of the scenes, the haunting mass hanging scene. Others were just seemed totally forced and well, dumb. Whether it was some idiot turning on this big lawnmower and casually laying down in front of it or some crazy old lady (who sadly may have been the scariest thing in the movie...not a compliment) smashing her face through a window?, the scenes seemed like something a 15 year old might think up, not the guy who made us all squirm in "The Sixth Sense".
With all that, I gave the movie a 4. Admittingly, it may be just me remembering M. Night's previous films and giving him bonus points for those. Or maybe I sort of welcomed the whole 'plants' plot and just wished for more (aka a lot more) out of it. Either way I (along with the rest of the audience) walked out extremely disappointed, laughing more times then I screamed, only remembering the movie for Zooey Deschanel's eyes.