Pointless Happening

Rating: Null/10 (13 June 2008)

This weak mass of a film is a major disappointment from M.Night Shyamalan, director of classic films including The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs. The central premise is that nature is striking back at the plague of humans on the planet by releasing an airborne toxin that causes people to kill themselves(the film has a very heavy-handed environmental subtext). While this premise provides for some striking images - dozens of people hurling themselves off building, or hanging like strange fruit from the trees - the film unravels shortly after the opening scenes. Mark Whalberg is horribly miscast as high school science teacher Elliot and Zooey Deschanel, who plays his wife Alma is better at comedy than horror. The movie follows the basic format of a zombie movie, except when people get infected, they kill themselves. The lack of any tangible menace means the film mainly consists of the protagonists running through fields as Shyamalan tries desperately to make shots of grass and trees rustling the wind seem horribly threatening. Try as he might, he can't do it. Worse still, the film doesn't follow any logic - if there's an airborne toxin, surely the first thing you would do would be to find a gas mask or seal yourself up in a relatively airtight building? What Shyamalan does manage to produce here is the world's most sustained suicide - glorifying film.