Brilliantly mediocre, as only Shyamalan can do it...

Rating: 5/10 (14 June 2008)

M. Knight Shyamalan takes himself too seriously.
Apparently, M. Knight has come to the understanding that it really doesn't matter what his film is about. As long as his name is on the movie trailer, people will come & see it... all in the hopes of experiencing that sense of awe we all felt when we realized Bruce Willis was actually dead; or that Samuel L. Jackson was actually the comic-book nemesis who caused all those tragedies; or that Ron Howard's blind daughter was actually living in modern day...
Of course, with that hope comes the disappointment that there IS no mind-bending twist... that the aliens attacking the world look just like every other alien movie FX, or that the weird girl in the water is about as interesting as the drain-hair in the bottom of that pool.
Well, to quote one reviewer, The Happening should be titled The Crap-pening. Because it just lays there, stinking, floating-- waiting for someone to flush. But no one ever does.
Lets be honest. It was Shyamalan, so I was tense. The eery pace and ominous music built the perfect mood for a terror-ific payoff that never happened. Instead, The Happening was all about realism-- how would real people respond to such a 'happening'? There was no rioting in the streets. There was no grand battle to determine the victorious species. There was only the helpless hope of a man, as he faced uncertain death... at a less-than-frantic pace.
(***Spoiler Alert***) And while the cinematography was beautiful, and some of Shyamalans storytelling was effective, the story itself was just, plain stupid. The 'parable' (as some have called it) of this movie was that the plants were upset with humans, and were fighting back... SERIOUSLY?!? A global warming/save the planet message?? Give me an Al-Gore break!! And what about all the sub-plots that give a good movie nuance & depth? Oh, that's right. There were none! Instead, we are saddled with cheesy, suicide Special FX (yes, your ficus wants you to kill yourself), and a singular, unwavering story-line that was about as exciting as a Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch reunion tour.
One aspect of this flick that I have enjoyed, however, are the inevitable number of reviewers who explain to the rest of the world that we don't "get" M. Knight Shyamalan, because we're not filmmakers or we're too jaded by Hollywood. That may be. But I have yet to read a positive review that can effectively give me any poignant, redeeming quality of this film. Instead, they offer only condescension or rhetoric.
Still, I cannot say that I totally hated this film. Although I left disappointed, I sat through the entire film in eager anticipation and hope, searching frantically for the twist that would pull it all together ("Could it be the mood ring??? The honey bees? Maybe the hot dogs??"). There really was a lot of suspense.
At the very end though, my greatest joy in this film was the realization that, I got punked! I expected twists and turns, but was saddled with pretense and anti-climactic melodrama. And in the face of a public crying out to M. Knight for another "Sixth Sense", I can imagine "anti-climactic" was what he was going for, in an attempt to prove that he doesn't have to bow to public opinion or demands. He's M. Knight Shyamalan, for crying-out-loud. He can fart on film-stock and people will come to see it.
And that's exactly what "Happened"...