Today.. we're going to talk about a little film you may have heard about. The Happening.
The Happening is the latest movie from M. Night Shyamalan. The film focuses on a small group of people on the run from a mysterious occurance that's rendering innocent denziens of America into helpless little vegetables. Now before I continue, I would just like to let everyone know one thing. I fucking hate M. Night Shymalan. I've seen most of his movies and personally, I believe them to be shit. Now I do hold a special place in my heart for Unbreakable, and just like everyone else, I enjoyed the Sixth Sense, but lets face it.. I have a raging hard on for Bruce Willis, so I'm giving him ALL of the credit. Fuck the little indian guy.
Before I get into the actual movie.. I'd like to provide a little bit of background into me watching the movie. As most of you know, I work at Hollywood Video. We receive the movies a week prior to their release date so that the employees can watch the movies to provide aid to any customer in peril. You know the types. "Oh please movie god.. Tell me.. is Mee the Spartans any good?". Yes. Them. Normally however.. I just watch whatever the hell I want to watch and just tell the dumb savages who shop at the store that their movie taste is divine. This week proved to be different however. After burning through the rentals that I was personally interested in, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer and 30 Rock Season Two (Tina Fey FTW), I decided that I would step up and rent the "blockbusters". These so called office breakers for the week were Adam Sandler's "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" and of course, M. Night's "The Happening".
Now, up to this point, I'd felt that I'd been a little bit unfair to my little indian companion and decided to give the Happening a fair chance. After all, it has the gorgeous Zooey Deschanel and Mark fucking Wahlberg in it, how bad could it be? In such, I sat the movie aside to watch after digesting the longer "Zohan". I still cannot tell if that was a mistake or not. I sat through the ridiculous SHIT that was the Zohan and proceeded to pop the Happening's cute little disc into my X-Box... my adventure then began.
The Happening opens with a scene in Central Park. Two girls talking on a park bench just as the invisble menace of the film strikes, rendering many of the citizens passing through immobile and suicidle. This initial scene sets the tone for the movie and introduces us to the threat itself, before we meet out protagonists for the film. Initially The Happening focuses on two middle aged school teachers. Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) a science teacher and Julian (John Leguizamo) a math teacher, who are pulled from their class rooms to attend a mid-day staff meeting. They are told of the threat and that school is cancelled, it is here that the plan for Elliot, Julian, and their families to escape is introduced.
From the school we follow Elliot home to meet with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) before they leave to meet up with Julian at the train station. The "attack" has spread over more of New York and they all plan to travel to Philadelphia (That's in Pennsylvania folks) until these "Happenings" clear up. At the train station we meet Julian daughter Jess, whom after a short period into the movie, Elliot and Alma are forced to take into their care. The rest of the movie follows the group and other would be survivors as they travel along in an attempt to escape the mysterious attacks on humans.
Going into this movie.. I expected the worst. Like most people, I'd heard that the only redeeming value of this movie was Mark Wahlberg and let me tell you folks, that's a fucking lie. I really couldn't tell you what it is, but Mark Wahlberg playing a straight laced school teacher with an emotional attatchment to a mood ring, just doesn't seem right. It seemed awfully forced at times, and rightfully so, Mark Wahlberg could easily face off againt any of Shymalan's boogie man antagonists. Aliens? Dead. Creatures in the forest? Dead. The dead? Dead... but it wasn't jus the perception. It almost seemed like Wahlberg had a hard time turning himself into such a pansy that his nice guy reactions seemed.. fake.
Now The Happening wasn't all bad. I applaude M. Night for taking an old school atmosphere approach to a horror film, if you can call it that. His use of the central antagonist was good and the shots displaying this menace were very well done. Overalll the story was well crafted but the overall concept was kind of flat from the start. In the moment when you find out what's causing all of the mysterios "happenings" may be the very same moment that you scoff at the entire film.
More often than not, I wouldn't reccomend this movie to anyone but Shymalan fans, not because its bad, but because of the movie's tendancy to result in a gargantuan "Meh". The Happening suffers from an almost uneventful plot, weak characters, and a serious lack of tension and atmosphere. Oh and let's not forget the super-exciting "twist" at the end of the movie, that just lack the previous movies M. Night has done, was unspectactular and fails to hold up to the bar set by "The Sixth Sense"
Grade: C
For being stunningly average..
