NEW Happening (DVD)

OK...Umm...Uh...OK, just stall words to keep me from getting started. OK, here goes.

First the negative: "The Happening" just is not happening as a successful film. Did M. Night really think a movie with the wind blowing trees and grasses would be frightening? Or that the addition of music as a character with the wind would be ominous enough? Perhaps it is with Mark Wahlberg that he expected the movie to be scary. After all, Wahlberg is noted for his intense acting and those serious facial contortions. One scene shows a side view of his face all screwed up. All I could think was how deeply creased his forehead would one day be! A scary movie should not allow me to think that!

However, one of the few really scary parts occurred when the greenhouse guy was in the scene. First, he tells us that plants respond to human voices (true, long-time studies have confirmed this) and that they can respond negatively as well--deep foreshadowing! After the close-up of his misaligned facial features, I fully expected this dude to be hit with neurotoxins and go beserk. Didn't happen. Red herring!

Another really scary part involved the old woman living in isolation, who revealed herself to be beserk without help of neurotoxins. Maybe that was M Night's point: Nature needs to help along the deletion of unsavory human beings, especially including Average Joe (the construction site jumpers--it is no telling what they have done to the plant world!!), but also the truly insane (the old woman who wisely chose to live in the safety of isolation).

I'm going to leave the last three months alone. I could tear into the problems there, too.

Now the positive: Some of these comments are just the reverse of my negative ones. For example, the addition of Wahlberg in the film was a plus because of his intensity. He pretty much makes the whole plant thing believable--well, almost believable. I was even convinced his and Alma's love stopped the neurotoxins. Actually, because of the mystery entwined throughout the story, there is no reason not to think their love stopped the toxins. In other scenes the galloping fear of toxins seemingly increased the plant rampage.

Overcast skies, wind and music, discordance between words and actions, palpable fear, Wahlberg's panic attack, the Hitchcock-like house and old woman--all lent themselves to an increasing sense of unease to dis-ease. The film does work in some ways.

I leave further arguments to others.

The Happening is the story of a couple, teacher Elliott More (played by Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (played by Zooey Deschanel), who wake up one day to find that the east coast of the United States is under some sort of event/happening/terrorist attack. They flee the city via train, trying to escape this happening, and this is where the movie takes off.

I have to admit, I liked the first half of this film, the buildup wasn't bad, and the script was pretty good. But then somewhere near the middle, during a scene where the protagonists exited a train, the movie went off the rails.

The last half of this film was a huge disappointment. The happening seemed to attack everyone but the lead characters, and the movie turned into a spoof of itself. The ending was flat, and you are left with an emotionless feeling; a sense of "why did I watch this" washes over you.

Unlike many people who reviewed The Happening, I am a fan of M. Night. I loved Signs, Unbreakable and Lady In The Water. But The Happening is not cut from the same mold. The script, especially the dialog, are horrendous and read about as hokey as it gets.

Rent before you buy this movie.

Someone save M. Night Shymalan from himself. For a man who insists on writing, producing and directing his own movies, he's digging an early grave for his career as a filmmaker and "The Happening" has breached the six-foot mark for his burial. Sporting a lousy script and lousy performances to boot, Shyamalan's much talked-about first R-rated film is a travesty of filmmaking that deserves no better than a 30% rating. If it were a tomato, it'd be pretty darn rotten.

The film begins in the early morning hours in Central Park. People are milling about, casually strolling, going about their business. Two young women sit on a bench chit-chatting when one of them hears a shrill scream and turns her head in the direction of the sound. What she begins to see after a moderate breeze blows through are people suddenly frozen in their tracks, still as statues, an act that mirrors that of a real-life coordinated event once performed in NY's own Grand Central Station (and I have to wonder whether the film was somehow conceived from that). As she turns to her friend Claire to tell her what she sees, her friend begins mumbling incoherently and slowly removes the hairpick from her tightly wound chignon, deliberately stabbing herself in the neck.

From there, we are taken to a construction site three blocks away at 8:39 am, only six minutes into the future from the strange occurrence at Central Park. A body drops from a fatal height and several foremen rush to his aid, only to witness several more men fall to their death. We are then scooted along to a small high school in Pennsylvania where science teacher Elliott Moore (Wahlberg) is giving an animated lecture at 9:45 am. He is suddenly pulled aside by the school principal and taken to a room where the entire faculty hears of the strange events in New York. The American media assumes at first it is some sort of biochemical terrorist attack, due to the fact that only major cities are being targeted while small towns remain safe. This theory is quickly busted when small towns suddenly fall prey, the safe zones growing smaller and smaller as Elliott, his wife Alma (Deschanel) and fellow teacher and close friend Julian (Leguizamo) try to find a haven from this unseen and presumably unstoppable force.

"The Happening" glows with promise in its first ten minutes but withers quickly after, leading its audience into a deep dark abyss of disappointment. At a tight 1 hour and 30 minutes, the film is still agonizingly long, what with its laughable scientific theories and hackneyed performances. Wahlberg and Deschanel embarrass themselves time and time again, but I have to wonder whether it's really their fault. Is it due to Shyamalan's joke of a screenplay or his poor direction? These actors are better than this and their other films are proof of it. Leguizamo is the only semblance of a saving grace, making the most with what little he's got. The rest of the cast come and go, largely unknown and largely insignificant still.

Bottom line: There isn't much more to say about "The Happening" except that it ain't happening, if you get my drift. Feel free to watch it and formulate your own opinion if you wish, but don't say you haven't been warned.

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