The Happening-Not

Rating: 5/10 (12 October 2008)

Shyamalan has talent, but it's undeveloped. He tells a story as though he were a father telling his son a bed time story... in his case always about the boogie man. He sets it up brilliantly, creates tension masterfully and then, like a father who just wants to get the story over and leave the room, he fumbles badly. We are not children and our eyes are still open when he exits, no satisfactory plot conclusion or denouement in hand. He starts out the story wonderfully, immediately creating tension with the people in Central Park stopping and then going crazy. Then the falling bodies from a building. Then the panic. And then...not much. I won't bother analyzing the dialogue which seems sophomoric, often or the clear plot errors. But no matter what else plants might do, including releasing deadly toxins, they don't make wind storms. They just don't, unless we're in the Lord of the Rings and the Ents are present. Trees don't sway their limbs at will and grasses don't wave in their own wind... etc. No only that, although some plants do know when they are being eaten and emit toxins to ward of predators, they don't sit down at a round table and talk to each other, the Elms to the crab grass to the foxglove to the mustard to the Willow and decide, with malefaction, to exterminate anything, let alone mankind. They might, a specie at a time, evolve to give off toxins in the air, but they wouldn't just turn them on and off like pesticide blowers, unless they are all controlled by some Hindu Hayagriva. And if there were some deadly toxin released and blown around magically, it certainly wouldn't have any trouble getting into a 150 year old house or shed.... windows open or shut. There are so many things wrong with this movie it's clear that Mr. Shyamalan needs a lot of help. He should come up with the ideas and maybe even direct. But he needs someone to write a screenplay that will make sense. Three years ago I complained about this man's lack of talent in writing the 6th Sense. The plot made no sense. Yes, it was a good mood piece, but it was designed to fool us, at all times and when you knew the ending, you knew that the plot made no sense. It's wasn't the 6th Sense... it was No Sense. But now others have seen that behind the curtain, there is no "Ansiktet."