The happening

[slickstu]

Over the last 10 years it's seems I've often found myself in the role of M. Night Shyamalan's public defender against the detractors who doubt the man's film making talent. While it's certainly true that the quality of his films have been in steady decline from the brilliant pinnacle of The Sixth Sense to the somewhat shaky Lady In the Water, I've always maintained that Shyamalan's "bad" films are better than most other directors' good ones. It seems that with The Happening, however, I must concede defeat as this is a poor film by Shyamalan's standards and, at best, a very average film by any other standard.

After all his intriguing movies to date, with The Happening Shyamalan delivers a stock standard disaster flick and not a very good one at that. The solution to the crisis which afflicts this tale is provided by a crazy botanist about half an hour into the story. This theory is then pondered by our science teacher hero, Mark Wahlberg, for next hour who finally concludes (along with the scientific community at large) that the crazy man's theory was indeed correct. And herein lies the problem: the answer is given at the start of the film and the narrative fails to provide anything new from this point forward.

The films credibility is not helped by a supremely silly premise. But other movies have been made with more absurd premises than this and still worked; the trick is to make your ridiculous supposition believable on some level. Shyamalan's idea is unconvincing at the start and it still fails to convince by the end.

Shyamalan's characters are also unconvincing and his lack of character detail makes the relationships between them perplexing. We never learn enough about Wahlberg to trust that he knows what he's talking about and so when he lectures us on scientific principles, it feels like he's teaching us to suck eggs. Zooey Deschanel begins the film looking like a neurotic, whiny, simpleton but we soon learn that she is not so. So why is she portrayed this way to begin with? And apart from being a maths teacher, we have no idea who John Leguizamo is except that his character exists only to thrust an orphan into the story.

Placing the story's twist at the beginning of the narrative is certainly curious and provocative but it nullifies the point of having a twist. Maybe the real twist to this film is that Shyamalan, the renowned "Master of Twists", made a movie without one. But if this is so, he doesn't pull it off. Shyamalan may be good writer and director but he's clearly not that good!

5 out of 10

[3XX]

One of Marks worst i recon, dont watch it.

[Jaz808]

Agree, one of the worst films

[rickove]

Scary Grass an trees! an the wind watch out for this? Run!
Yep poor effort this movie,watch an yawn.zzzz

[z1gg33]

OK, I like Mark Wahlberg... come people its Marky Mark!! Rockstar was still his best role.

and well its the ONLY reason I even bothered, I'll have to agree here... bit of a stinker, I switched off 1/2 way nothing about it really made me feel like continuing to watch it..

[Twoshots]

Not Happening at all!