Ain't no plot Happening here.

Rating: 3/10 (5 December 2008)

Well, this sucks. M. Night Shyamalan is not a director I've been very familiar with over the years, having only seen his much-lauded and much-overrated The Sixth Sense, but he seems absurdly pretentious and smug. And all I have to say to that is, if this fecal matter is the best he can do these days, then he had better start learning some god damned humility.
The Happening is another one of those fashionable natural disaster movie, only about ten times worse than you'd usually expect. This movie boasts deplorable writing, awful acting, plastic characters that try and fail to get you to care about them, and THE LAMEST DISEASE EVER. I won't spoil it for those of you who have not seen it yet, but this disease and the "plot" constructed around it are absolutely laughable. It seems to be TRYING to build up, but it doesn't work, and mostly this just comes off as a bunch of suspenseful (haha) scenes strung together on a clothesline with no punch line or climax or anything of the sort. Oh, and why do all the characters in this movie have to say "happening" so much? Annoying as Hell. This is basically a shitty 80s B movie with a modern sheen, and that is more horrifying than anything Shyamalan could conjure up in his writing.
Oh, and have I mentioned how delightfully retarded this is? I mean, we have people talking to plants, the main character and his fiancée arguing about their petty problems in the middle of a train station where everyone is trying to escape the virus, and worst of all, the frighteningly dumb jab at the Americans with all of the references to "terrorists." Nice one, Shyamalan. All Americans are like that, indeed. F*ck you all the way to the bank.
So basically, all the viewer can really do, deprived of any visible plot or hook to grab onto, is sit in awe of the puerile dialogue and attempts at characterization, which are so bad they're funny, and I actually found myself laughing at this more than real comedies like Death to Smoochy and Tropic Thunder, which leaves something to be said for those, as well. I'll chuck a few points onto the rating here, as it did make me laugh a few times, but really, The Happening is an awful movie and I would not recommend it.