M. Night Shyamalan, Please Give Up

Rating: 3/10 (21 June 2008)

Now, I saw The Happening just a few hours ago, and I first have to mention, no matter how much water I drink or pain medication I take, my headache refuses to stop.
This film is truly a tough experience to watch. I really can't tell you how frustrated I was through most of this film, and had I not wasted money to throw away an hour and a half of my life, I probably would have walked out of that theater.
Now, to be fair, the acting wasn't so horrible... In most cases. There's really no excuse for Zoeey Deschanel, whose stumbling, baffled expression seems to maintain regardless of how unbaffling her situation is. Otherwise, Mark Wahlberg handles himself fairly well, and even delivers some fairly funny lines in the unfortunately rare scenes of intentional comedy that are given, which are really the only highlights of the film. The rest of the supporting cast works decently as well. The real failing is that dialogue, which mainly consists of "What's happening?" or "Why is this happening?" for an hour and a half. Over and over and over again. A number of the reactions are totally inappropriate, (Such as referring to the clearly aggressive and angry people your trying to get to help you as "b******" and "p******", or a soldier reacting to information of more dead bodies with "Cheese and crackers!"), and the emotionally line are written and delivered in a manner very similar to the infamous "Anakin, your breaking my heart!" scene from Star Wars III. in case you haven't seen it, that scene was ridiculously bad.
The plot is silly. An air-born virus caused by some very p***ed off and sensitive planets releases some sort of chemical that causes every one to want to kill themselves, and apparently only when they're in groups. Hopefully this concept isn't supposed to be believable, because, while I may not be a neuro-scientist, I'm pretty sure plants aren't capable of messing with our brains like that. Anyway, regardless, these plants apparently only feel like killing people when they're in numbers greater than five, and only in the north-east portion of the United States. However, no matter what circumstance the protagonists are put it, they still seem totally in affected, even when everyone else around is putting guns to their heads, and in the end, {Spoiler alert, if you really care please skip to the next paragraph}, the second these characters go outside, the virus miraculously stops! For no other reason than Shymalan's belief that a deus ex machina is a totally believable idea.
While this is not quite the worst film I've ever seen (I saw Eragon, I'm pretty much prepared for anything), its definitely high on the my list. Its one of the most frustrating films I've ever sat through, and anyone who goes to see it should expect nothing better. If you have to see it, rent it. Its not worth the money you would be wasting in a theater.