An average catastrophe movie...

Rating: 5/10 (25 June 2008)

First let me tell you the resume of the film: As it was exhaustively told here, the movie is about a strange event which is causing people from a large area of the United States to kill themselves. First is though to be an terrorist attack, then the possibility is discarded as the deaths escalates. Meanwhile an average science teacher and his wife try to survive in the middle of the event.
Although the premise is interesting, and a weird and horrific beginning get your full attention, the movie quickly crash and burn since Mark Wahlberg start acting on the screen. And move hill down until the end, due to Mark Wahlberg's awful and childish acting and Night Shyamalan's very bad directing and speech lines.
BUT people saying here this film is the worst ever is clearly lying, perhaps to disappointment due to high expectations of the movie or by comparing it with Shyamalan's master piece: 6th Sense. I can quickly think of dozens of movies clearly worse than this one.
The movie isn't all bad: The story is somewhat original, and it properly place a dreadful feeling that any protagonist can die at any moment. The tension is all there. The score is wonderful, and properly sets the tense mood among with the properly gruesome deaths the movie depicts.
To resume, here are the Bads and Goods of the movie:
## Bads:

Marky Mark's acting. I mean... seriously!!! How can someone think this moronic acting is a good thing? I don't mean he can't act, he just can't act a non-action, non-cold-or-aggressive character. Elliot Moore was supposed to be a tender and frightened average guy, thing Mark Wahlberg failed miserably to do. This show us Mark Wahlberg is just a one-role actor, and Shyamalan is a very bad producer for casting him for this role. It is worth notice many lesser actors in the movie acted infinitely better than him, like the construction guy at the beginning, and even the frightened soldier, showing us it IS possible to do act despise Shyamalan's bad direction. But Mark Wahlberg fail that and show us some of the worst acting an Oscar-nominated ever did in the whole movies history. It is worth notice the same bad acting can be seen with all movies where Mark Wahlberg is supposed to play a nice guy, like the movie good-assassin-guy The Big Hit.

Zooey Deschanel's disturbing acting. Watching her I just wondered what was wrong with Alma, and wondered the whole movie if she was under the influence of the toxin or some other drug. It turned out she wasn't, and her odd behavior was just there because of Zooey Deschanel's bad acting, bad speech lines, and Shyamalan awful production and direction.

Crazy characters! I mean, they are all crazy! And I am not saying about the toxin-demented characters. Few act as a normal person in a catastrophic event. The creepy man talking with his flowers, the creepy Alma emotionlessly looking at her phone vibrating, the crazy Elliot crying like a retarded baby for time instead of freaking out and running away from the other group, and of course, the creepy old woman that is just there for the sake of being creepy. It show us how horrible is character development and speech lines in Shyamalan's script.

Lousy science. plants communicating with themselves? Toxins quickly devised to eradicate mankind? Plants able to sense crowds of people? I usually don't have much problem with suspension-of-reality, but too many lousy science is a bit over-the-top.

DEUS-EX-MACHINA ending. The protagonist goes to the wind and suddenly all is all right.

No climate built in. Shyamalan throw all the movie plot still in the beginning, when some horticulturist's crazy and silly theory turn out to be right. the plot is just spit at the audience. And so is the confirmation, and the imbecile explanations from the TV at the end of the movie. Too bad Shyamalan lost his touch to build tension, like he did in 6th sense, the Vile or Signals.

## Now the good parts:

Great and original premise. Shyamalan's works have a unique touch of wonder we rarely see in movies today (even in fantasy movies), and it is too refreshing. It is as wonderful as terrifying. Besides Shyamalan, few works accomplish this, like Del Toro's Faun's Labyrinth.

Great story - Properly gore deaths, required to build the dreadful tension of the movie.

Great cinematography.

## Conclusion
The movie had potential. But Shyamalan's incompetence to direct and develop normal characters (in a non-crazy way), amongside Mark Wahlberg's poor and childish acting, blew the film. However, many elements of the story where good enough to barely hold it altogether. In the end, The Happening is a fun-to-watch average film.
## side note
If you want a really good catastrophic sci-fi-horror movie, I suggest watching Stephen King's The Mist instead. It is creepier, better directed, and better acted.