Glad it was a Library Rental!

Rating: 2/10 (1 March 2009)

The Sixth Sense was my favorite movie EVER (and that's out of 55 years of movie watching) - but The Happening is waaay down on my list. I wasn't merely disappointed, I was incredulous! When the credits came on I was like, "Are you kidding me?!" I kept waiting for the requisite protagonist genius solution; the guy was a math teacher.. one of the victims kept repeating "calculus, calculus".. ergo, the hero would, in a flash of inspiration, solve the problem with an equation and rush to initiate the antidote. But no, this was an antagonist who wouldn't be stopped. I felt that the ending was an easy cop-out. Godzilla finally dies at the end... oh no, wait, it was just an NDE, here comes Godzilla again! Credits. It's like countless films that reanimate the monster/murderer at the end just so a sequel could be made - except in this case there will be no sequel - it was just a lazy way to end a movie. Not that films should necessarily be predictable, but in lieu of a twist here and a surprise there, at least throw us some juicy morsels of gratification! This movie lacked depth, intensity, revelation and satisfaction. For the most part, I thought the actors did their jobs well enough, but in scenes such as the one where a group of virtually nonplussed people are watching a man being torn apart limb from limb by a lion in the zoo - I thought to myself "Are they zombies? I mean, seriously, no one puking or passing out or biting their fingers with pale faces and wide-eyed looks of horror?" It was more like "Oh no, tell me it isn't true!" I'm just glad that the library paid for this one, because my dissatisfaction would have been nine dollars worse if I had gone to the theater. FYI, I still have faith in M. Night; I sure hope his next flick will be closer to The Sixth Sense on my list, and I can just forget that this one ever "Happened".