The Happening

Curiosity got the better of me and I watched this. Don't make my mistake, you are not that bored.Terrible acting, bad directing, bad editing, cheap looking, dull script - these are the highlights.Bad if not completely strange acting by Zooey Deschanel, who seems to be in a different movie than the rest of the cast. I think she was told that this was an upbeat horror comedy. Wahlberg in just made of wood - and not the good polished wood you would like for a coffee table, no, I mean the particle board you get for a shoe shelf that is going into the closet. Luckily, the chemistry between Deschanel and Wahlberg saves the day - I'm just kidding, there is nothing there. As I used the remote more and more to speed through to the end of the film I was rooting for "the happening" to happen to all of them.I know, I know - M Night Shyamalan. I should know better by now.

Oh man. How do I rate this? I bought it because I knew it was bad. It is for a bad movie marathon. Specifically end of the world type of movies. Basically it's Mark Wahlberg day. Also Gerard Butler. Those guys need to do a movie together. The plot could be that the only way to save earth is to blow up the moon. I'm already excited to watch it. I'll be the opening day with a Monster in one hand ands some beef jerky in the other.Oh no. They get to the moon and discover that Jason Statham has been living there, and they're blowing up the moon over his dead body.Paul Giamatti is back at NASA pissed off because nobody listened to him when he said Statham could still be alive up there.And off in the corner Stanley Tucci is getting ready to set off the space nukes, killing the whole team. Why didn't they just use the space nukes to begin with? CHUG SOME MONSTER, GNAW ON SOME JERKY AND STOP ASKING QUESTIONS! All Gerard Butler wants to do is save the world for his adorable little girl and vaguely-famous-but-not-enough-to-be-paid-the-same romantic interest.Where's my bag of money?

Basically, this is a story about how love can conquer all, even an unseen, diabolical plant demon. I went into this movie with an open mind, however, the acting was so incredibly bad that it was hard to take it seriously. I don't know if Mark Wahlberg has done too many comedies, but it didn't seem like he was taking this movie seriously. The chemistry between him and Zooey Deschanel was lackluster. The only reason I finished the movie is because I'm not a quitter. This was a tough one...

Everyone in New York City’s Central Park suddenly freezes and then when they come out of their temporary paralysis they start trying to kill each themselves. A few blocks away at a construction site workers begin jumping off the top of a building to their deaths. That’s the shocking opening of The Happening. The movie was written, directed and co-produced by M. Night Shyamalan. He’d had a series of hits like The Sixth Sense, but with this movie his big twist which was what he was known for was a complete dud.The Happening is set up as a thriller. The events in New York City begin spreading across the East Coast of the United States. Philadelphia science teacher Mr. Moore (Mark Wahlberg), his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), his friend Julian (John Leguizamo) and his daughter Ashlyn (Jess) jump on a train to get out of the city, but then get stuck in a small town. They hope they can get away from whatever is happening, but there is no escape. When it’s finally revealed at the end it turned out to be really dumb. Even before that happens Shyamalan starts throwing in ridiculous scenes hinting that this movie is not going to end well. Plus there are multiple holes in the plot.The story was supposed to play upon the fears of terrorism. People suddenly start dying and everyone blames terrorists. Then the twist turns out to be something completely different and is supposed to be a warning to the public, but it’s so bad no one probably listened. It also made you question Shyamalan’s talent. Was he really such a good writer or was he just thinking up these surprise endings because that was what he became known for so he had to have one in everything he created?C

I'm going to save you some time, okay? Shyamamaju's movies tend to have some kind of "twist". This awful film's twist is that all the plants on earth suddenly evolved lethal spore-based neurotoxins that specifically target humans and make them kill themselves with whatever they can get their hands on. Now that you've read that, doesn't that sounds STUPID? I mean isn't that an incredibly dumb idea for a movie? It is. It really is. And yet, some nimrod executive at 20th Century Fox decided that not only was it a GOOD idea, but it was an idea worth investing 48 million dollars into.It was almost universally panned, AND YET was a box-office success, which should be indicative to you of the average level of intelligence of the common movie-going populace. Now, if you just read that sentence, and you understood what the words "indicative" and "populace" meant without having to look them up, congratulations! You will also find this move to be utterly terrible.It's poorly acted, has very little shock value, low production values, and is just a generally unambitious, boring, nonsensical affair. Watch literally anything else, EXCEPT Shyamumalan's other "worst film", Lady in the Water. Don't even get me started on THAT god-awful thing.

Received wisdom might have you believe all sorts of negative things about this film, but if you haven't seen it I'd urge you to give it a go. It's unsettling, imaginative and downright disturbing in parts, a horror film that has a lot more to offer than by-the-numbers scares. No reliance on cynically engineered jump shots, overblown effects or yet-another-spooky-child-with-a-jerky-walk. As such The Happening is hugely refreshing, and a deserves a better reputation.

Something horrible is happening with the plants in the North West of the USA; the Worst Hay Fever Evah! But instead of the explosions of Hobbesian violence that such stories usually entail the Americans suffering the attack talk to each other and endeavour to help each other in a rational and helpful way. There is a little violence (other than the effect of the happening) but in general there is more Willy Wonka than Night of the Living Dead. Amidst the full horror of watching Mark Wahlberg's character thinking (with you shouting advice at the screen) there are some brilliant moments where the sight of a wind blowing across a verdant field induces terror in the watcher. I suspect its general slowness and the annoying main leads will not make it as popular as it might be, but it has its moments.

I had to buy this to add to my MNS collection. Its a strange tale but grabs your attention first thing with people throwing themselves from buildings. Give it a try!

The film is genuinely awful, but you probably already knew that and are only reading the reviews to confirm what you've heard. Wooden acting, hammy and over the top, daft 'suspense'... so bad it's almost good.

The premise of nature fighting back in revenge to the devastation humankind is wreaking on the planet, is quite contemporary. (Although with the amount of CO2- i.e. "plant oxygen"- we are pumping out, I would have thought that the plant life would actually look favorably on us). The film is well acted, it is well directed and there are some quite scary moments but it doesn't quite pull it all off. A film for renting out or seeing once at the cinema rather than constant re-seeing, I think.