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The Happening (2008)
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Movie review
From Time Out New York
In The Happening, residents of the Northeast helplessly begin to kill themselves for reasons unknown; by this point in M. Night Shyamalan’s career, the movie’s chief accomplishment may be not inspiring a similar desire in viewers. After Lady in the Water, the Sixth Sense wunderkind has gone tail between legs and made a bare-bones epidemic movie. Unfortunately, however confident with his shock cuts, he’s still phenomenally insecure as a writer, and apparently felt no one would understand his theme unless Mark Wahlberg lectured the audience on the limits of scientific knowledge.
The movie opens at 8:33am on a Tuesday in Central Park, where a mass suicide segues to construction workers jumping off roofs; clearly, Shyamalan has no compunctions about exploiting September 11 imagery. Cut to “Philadelphia High School,” the evacuation of which pushes the protagonists to head westward. In Shyamalan’s hermetic universes, answers always come easy: Notice how that greenhouse is dwarfed by really big nuclear smokestacks. Every character trait is put to use; schoolteacher Wahlberg, in a troubled marriage to Zooey Deschanel, actually recites the scientific method aloud before problem solving. If God made the aliens go away in Signs, can true love hold back the toxic winds? More to the point, can anyone find out without laughing?
Author: Ben Kenigsberg
Time Out New York Issue 664: June 19 - 25, 2008
User reviews of this film
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- kpizz said...
- Posted on Jun 27 2008 14:13 I loved it. I thought it was creepy, strange, and hilarious. At some poitns, the entire audience would shreak, and hide their eyes, and at other points the entire theatre would be hysterically laughing. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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- Ms. Diva said...
- Posted on Jun 26 2008 16:01 The happening was not HAPPENING. It was WACK.
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- chris johnson said...
- Posted on Jun 22 2008 10:06 This film should have been called the crappening, pathetic rubbish waste of money
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- Rafael said...
- Posted on Jun 15 2008 15:31 This is the second worst film I have ever seen (the first being battlefield earth with john travolta.
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- Skarto said...
- Posted on Jun 15 2008 13:25 I wish I had been drunk whilst watching it... what a shitty movie for a first date! *Headdesk*
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- brooklyn said...
- Posted on Jun 15 2008 09:32 Two minutes of good images does nothing to save the other hour and a half. Awfuk acting, AWFUL script...scenes of Marky Mark to make up his mind ("I need another second!") while a crowd stands around looking at him....a really laughable picture, maybe that is what M.Night was trying to do?
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- Andy said...
- Posted on Jun 14 2008 21:31 So you not wanna give away the ending to a mystery movie the next time you write a movie review? GREAT! Even for bad movies, you should have respect as a reviewer to not give away endings, or at least warn about spoilers before the review. But you know, thanks for ruining it for me before I get to see it.
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- Mazziemo said...
- Posted on Jun 14 2008 19:08 I would not give this movie any rating...worst movie I have ever seen..save your bucks and time and go see something else ...anything else
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- termite said...
- Posted on Jun 14 2008 17:12 The movie started out somewhat O.K. But 30 minutes into it everything a blur. I woke up to the usher tapping me on the shoulder that the movie was over. best nap i had in Months well worth the 10.00 bucks
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- Vincent said...
- Posted on Jun 14 2008 15:15 While I completely agree with your review (it is the best one I have read so far). I somewhat enjoyed the movie, mainly because i found it really funny. It may have been the thermos filled with margaritas and all my drunken friends that made it so great. We had fun with it, my friend started singing "It's Raining Men" as the construction workers jumped from the roof, and i "nom nom nom"ed when the lawnmower ran over that one guy. I am a big fan of Zooey and she was good, but i think she was silly at points as a result of bad directing. Marky Mark sounded as if he was speaking with children the entire movie, as if he were dumbing down the dialog. don't even get me started on the little girl. It started out very promising, but slowly became very blah and lacking in suspense. I would suggest going to see it, but expect a comedy.
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- JC said...
- Posted on Jun 14 2008 05:09 I just saw this film, and the audience turned on it Mystery Science Theater style. This is the only movie I have ever been to where the sold out theater seemed to welcome and encourage loud drunken commentary. I take it back, this was comic genius. However, if you watch it by yourself and sober, just gouge your eyes out now.
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- Ben Hodgson said...
- Posted on Jun 13 2008 18:57 Nice idea, horrendous execution. In all honesty, this is the worst film I have seen in my life to date. Avoid like a natural neurotoxin.
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Cast & crew
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez, Betty Buckley, Spencer Breslin full cast
Rated: R
Duration: 91 mins
US Release: Jun 13 2008
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