An M Night movie that sucks........What a Tweest!

Rating: 1/10 (26 June 2008)

Y'know, when I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was actually quite excited. Apocalyptic (and post-apocalyptic) movies are one of my favourite genres. It all looked so good in the trailer....right up until the moment the trailer revealed that it was "An M Night Shyamalan film". They might have well announced the movie to be a SciFi Channel spectacular. The impact could have hardly filled me with more dread.
Shyamalan has to date produced two good movies, one OK movie and, now, three stinkers. The balance of his work has passed the tipping point now and, barring some miracle, I can't see him clawing his way back from this.
The Happening is primarily composed of a small band of "survivors" roaming the countryside wondering whats happening and why people are killing themselves. Eventually they twig (sorry 'bout that pun) that it's the very plants themselves that are trying to kill them by releasing a nerve agent into the atmosphere. Of course. this is all very telegraphed from the start (it is a Shyamalan movie, after all) and rather anti-climactic when revealed. Anyway, the survivors wander about, wondering about what to do and uttering such priceless lines of dialogue that it's hard not to burst out laughing at times. In fact, many members of the audience I saw it with were unable to contain themselves and chortled through much of it. At least they were having a good time! Of course, seeing someone kill themselves on screen is not meant to be funny. And the first few times, it isn't. But as time goes by, the script calls for suicides in increasingly bizarre and preposterous ways, leading you to wonder whether someone in the projection booth might possibly have spliced in a few feet of a Monty Python movie as a joke.
Of course, the joke is on those who've paid to see this (I'm lucky enough to work in a cinema, so I get in free). I would be sorely tempted to ask for my money back if I had paid for this.
Plot-wise it's a basic "We hurt nature, now nature is getting revenge" deal. But the reality of plants evolving a neurotoxin capable of killing off humanity is woefully optimistic. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but to happen as portrayed in The Happening is nonsense.
Given the above, it's hard to make a suspenseful film whereby the main menace is a tree waving in the wind. Nevertheless, The Happening tries to do this and we are treated to any number of scenes of wind-blown plant life interspersed with the characters looking frightened. And when a character looks frightened at an innocuous object/item, its really hard not to snicker.
The acting is, for the most part, unbearably bad. Given the awful, discordant dialogue clangers that they have to drop during the film, it would be hard for even a veteran actor to summon any shred of stage-presence here. Mostly they just muddle through and then wander around some more. However, no one is going to win any awards for their roles here, and rightly so. Close-ups of Wahlberg looking, frankly, like an early-onset Alzheimer's sufferer, do nothing but move the audience to mirth.
One highly amusing acting point to note is Zooey Deschanel's incredible ability to act out most scenes as if she's pretending to be a Tarsier (google it and examine the resulting images, you'll see what I mean). Her bug-eyed staring is truly amazing and rather startling at first, then becomes merely amusing.
And that, sadly, is pretty much a good way to sum up this film. People wandering about, looking confused and wondering what the hell is going on. It's not gripping and it's not frightening. It's bizarre and ridiculous and will probably win an award for the funniest unfunny movie of 2008.
Not so much The Happening. More like The Not Much Happening. Imagine Day of the Triffids but without the Triffids and you'll get an idea how dull this movie is. It makes even the likes of Lady in the Water look like a frickin' Shakespearean masterpiece.
Seriously, avoid this one.