The Happening (2008)

• Year: 2008
• Released: 13 Jun 2008
• Country: United States, India
• Adwords: 3 wins & 10 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0949731/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/The_Happening
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-happening
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, French
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller
• Runtime: 91 min
• Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
• Director: M. Night Shyamalan
• Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo
• Keywords: natural disaster, tree, park, crisis, strange behavior,

	5.0/10
	34/100

The Happening Storyline

Lady in the Water director M. Night Shyamalan puts PG-13 suspense on pause to tell this grim apocalyptic tale about a family fleeing a natural disaster that poses a grave threat to the whole of humanity. Philadelphia high-school science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is discussing the disappearance of the bees with his students when the staff is summoned to the theater and briefed about a mysterious event that is currently unfolding in New York City. According to reports, citizens in the vicinity of Central Park have suddenly and inexplicably begun seizing up just before killing themselves by whatever means are at their disposal. As the phenomena begins to spread and talk of terrorism fills the airwaves, Elliot, his wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel), their friend Julian (John Leguizamo), and his daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), board a train bound for the presumed safety of the country. When the train screeches to a halt before arriving at its final destination, however, the frightened passengers are forced to fend for themselves as each consecutive news report paints an increasingly grim picture of the situation in more urbanized areas. Theories abound on what could be causing the inexplicable rash of suicides, but the only thing that everyone seems to agree on is that it’s some kind of airborne contagion that is carried in the wind. It would appear that humankind’s reign on planet Earth has come to an end, but perhaps if this small band of survivors can find a safe place to lie low until this all blows over, all hope for survival of the species might not be lost just yet.

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The Happening Movie Reviews

Proof that a movie with such potential could fall so hard

As I have said before, I am not a M Night Shyamalan detractor, I just feel saddened that somebody responsible for a masterpiece such as The Sixth Sense and a great movie like Unbreakable could fall to lows by being responsible for a movie as strange as Lady in the Water and as horrible as this. For me, Shyamalan’s worst film is between this and The Last Airbender.

The Happening did have a brilliant idea, but sadly this is living proof that a great concept could fall victim to such poor execution. The only redeeming values were the score that brims with beauty and intensity and Zooey Deschannel’s sympathetic performance.

Everything else however is a failure. The film doesn’t look so bad actually in the scenery and effects, but because there is no life to the film I could never properly enjoy it. Plus there is some camera work annoyances that were one of many flaws for Lady in the Water, such as the focusing on nothing and half-faces, not to mention the ridiculously long keep ahead of the wind close-up.

I wish I had better news about the story, script and characters, but I can’t. The script is incredibly contrived and ham-fisted especially Mark Wahlberg’s lunatic conversation with a plastic pot plant which is a contender for Wahlberg’s worst ever acting moment, and Shyamalan’s direction is either unfocused with the uneasy mix of disaster thriller or 1970s eco-horror or over-ambitious with again the trying to cram in too much notion that eluded a vast majority of his resume after Signs.

The characters are stereotyped, with Deschannel’s the only one I had any sense of care or sympathy for. The story is a mess, it may have started off intriguingly but suffered from a lack of suspense, dull pacing, the sense that the film doesn’t know whether it wants to be disaster thriller or eco-horror and one of the most hysterically awful last forty minutes I have seen of any film.

Mark Wahlberg I am not a fan of, but he has been capable of some good, even great, performances namely in The Fighter and especially Boogie Nights. But he is awful in this, one minute he is dull and the other minute he is overacting embarrassingly, it is painful to watch really. In conclusion, a mess of a film and considering the potential it should have been so much more than it was. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Overblown Outer Limits

Watching The Happening on the big screen tonight I had a feeling I was back in the Sixties looking at a souped up version of an Outer Limits episode that was given several million dollars to shoot. In fact maybe I ought to check their episode list.

The strangest terrorist attack on record takes place, starting in New York City’s Central Park. People just go into slow motion, stop, become completely disoriented and then start killing themselves with the closest means at hand. One woman stabs herself in the neck with a spike, construction workers just start jumping off the buildings they work on, a policeman in Philadelphia takes out his service weapon and shoots himself and then others follow picking up his weapon to use.

All this is frightening stuff and when it starts spreading across the Middle Atlantic states, Philadelphia science teacher Mark Wahlberg picks up his wife Zooey Deschanel and leaves. Along the way they inherit young Ashlyn Sanchez from Wahlberg’s colleague John Leguizamo.

M. Night Shaymalan usually does films with some spiritual meaning so I was surprised when he offered a scientific if far fetched explanation for what was happening. The plants on our planet have sped up the evolutionary process and now are emitting a disorienting gaseous toxin in the air. If that’s the case the thing to do is head for the concrete however the Amtrak train taking Wahlberg and company away from Philadelphia let’s them off in the woods between Philly and Harrisburg. I’m still trying to figure out why they didn’t run into any Amish.

Science isn’t Shaymalan’s bag however and it shows. I don’t think the concepts here were thought out at all. The ending you will find to be something of a surprise.

Best in the cast is Betty Buckley a strange hermit like woman who lives in the woods and offers some shelter for our travelers. But she’s one strange bird as you’ll discover.

The Happening was a major disappointment for me, I was expecting so much more and definitely something different.

More like The Crappening

Is M. Night Shyamalan, the director of this flop, the same M. Night Shyamalan who made THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE? You’d be forgiven for thinking that the director of the earlier, classy fare had been replaced by a talentless clone after watching this hugely embarrassing environmental-disaster thriller. It’s a film which opens with a handful of breathtaking set-pieces involving mass human madness, before swiftly descending into the kind of silly schtick that even a Sci-Fi Channel producer would think twice before greenlighting.

The blame is clearly fixed on Shyamalan’s shoulders; he didn’t only direct this tripe, but wrote it too. That indicates that the production was a labour of love, but what a misguided one! The script is appallingly bad, full of the kind of unreal dialogue that could only exist in a bad B-movie, and the whole film has a tired, subdued, seen-it-all-before air to it. As for the cast…well, words fail me. Mark Wahlberg is wooden and hopelessly, helplessly, miscast as a science teacher, delivering his lines with a kind of disbelief that he’s been caught up in this mess. Zooey Deschanel, who I previously saw in YES MAN (and to be fair she was quite appealing in that) is abhorrently awful, her wide-eyed style of acting more suited to a pantomime than a movie. The only one who gives a decent performance is the reliable John Leguizamo, and he doesn’t get a great deal of screen time at all.

THE HAPPENING lurches from one minor set-piece to the next, always promising more than it delivers. The plotting is basic and obvious, never less than contrived. Some moments, like when the two boys start going crazy, are so over-the-top and badly done that they become hilarious to watch. So, in the end, that’s what this becomes: a so-bad-it’s-funny experience, a modern day variant on the likes of ROBOT MONSTER and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Maybe audiences fifty years down the line will feel the same way…