The Happening (2008)

Written & Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

I should never have watched this movie. I haven't liked any of his past 3 movies, so I only watched this due to the recommendation from a friend, who usually has good taste. This story is completely illogical (even defying its own logic 80% of the time, leaving the other 20% unexplained entirely), the acting is atrocious (and I don't blame the actors, I blame the director) and it was just plain laughable in most spots due to the bad acting (under the poor direction) and the nonsensical nature of it.

Shyamalan is obsessed with fear for some reason, and even more obsessed with the way humans react to fear, and he is intent on constantly showing his audiences this type of reaction to fear through convoluted plots centered around characters that have nothing to offer. In this film, we are supposed to care about Elliot (Mark Wahlburg) and Alma (Zooey Daschanel) and their dissolving marriage. What we are never given is the reason to care about them, we are thrust into their situation at a seemingly random point in their lives, which is of course the day of THE HAPPENING. 

If you didn't know already, The Happening has no twist, and most people have given away what THE HAPPENING actually is. I won't bother to, since the poor plot device does nothing in the way of plot progression at any point in the movie. It's basically a way to kill a ton of people in different ways in a movie, there is a hokey theme that is centered around a completely ridiculous plot. As usual, all the technical aspects of this film are well accomplished, it's the acting, the directing (which also very negatively affected the acting, quite obviously) and the poor idea and its even worse execution in the script, it turns into a huge jokefest by the end. 

Literally, the ending defies any explanation (except the rudimentary one based on statistical probabilities that is presented by a talking head on TV) so the ending leaves you at a more frustrated spot than you were in at the beginning, wondering what was happening. It is explained what happens, but no REAL reason why (again, TV anchors explain 90% of the important plot points, which is just VERY lazy writing, I actually would've rather had a random scientist pop into frame and explain everything over everyone believing every word they get from the TV) and the conclusion of the movie deals with the characters and the way their lives are changed by THE EVENT (which is what the characters call THE HAPPENING), but again, we were never given any reason in the first place as to why they were actually at these spots in their lives, an attempted explanation is given by the characters when they think all is lost (of course, Shyamalan tries his hardest to avoid cliches, but instead walks headlong straight into them and apparently doesn't even realize it) leaving the whole film feeling like worthless exposition on some other film that we'll never see. What a waste of time.

4.3/10