Directed by:
M. Night ShyamalanScreenplay:
M. Night ShyamalanCinematography:
Tak FujimotoComposer:
James Newton HowardCast:
Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez, Betty Buckley, Spencer Breslin, Frank Collison, Jeremy Strong, Alan Ruck, M. Night Shyamalan (more)VOD (2)
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The film opens onto New York City's Central Park with a crowd of people enjoying an idyllic summer day. The carefree scene soon takes a terrifying turn, when out of nowhere, hordes of people begin to commit suicide en masse. Cut to Elliot (Mark Wahlberg), a science teacher in Philadelphia. When he learns of the attack on New York, he meets up with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), his friend Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julians's daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). They make plans to get out of the city via train, but the train is evacuated in the middle of a small Pennsylvania town. (20th Century Fox)
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Reviews (12)
We get a climax, the story moves forward along a path lined with tension, and the actors guide us through this depressing world with such ease that the hour and a half flies by almost on its own. So why am I staring at ultra-low ratings and reviews that constantly repeat borrowed complaints from reviews about the lack of a climax and total boredom? The Happening is now the third film in a row from M. Night Shyamalan that the public expects to combine The Sixth Sense and Signs and end up with a similarly nerve-wracking affair like those two. And as a result of these expectations, a harsh impact comes. I can understand this mistake with The Village, which I still consider one of the best films of my life, but with the excellent Lady in the Water, I understand it less, but if someone can't learn even on their third try, so be it. Perhaps it would be good to go to the cinema without prejudices and false expectations, and reconciling with the unpredictable Indian master will be on the agenda again.
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I'm probably tuned to a different wavelength than most users, but I quite liked The Happening. It doesn't have the feel of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable or Signs, but it's still a film with a good atmosphere and an appealing "We pissed off nature - now it’s going to get even with us" idea. By the way, the film reminded me in many moments of King's book “Cell" (admit it, Shyamalan, you read it in one sitting too), in which something similar actually happens. Pros for The Happening: Scenes like the workers falling, the suicide shooters, "sleepovers" in the old woman's house, the ending. The actors aren't bad (except for a whole hour and a half of weirdly freaked out Zooey Deschanel), and Newton Howard's music is as good as ever. Cons: In terms of suspense, Shyamalan remains behind his previous films (the wind rustling in the treetops is no match for the cornfields), there is little that is scary, nerve-rattling or unexpected in The Happening... And there is also no particularly shocking point. It gets three stars.
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An ordinary, straightforward, and boring film. And if it wasn’t for the big creaking house with a strange landlady, I wouldn't have even known that it was made by a master of tension and brilliant twists, and the fact that Shyamalan isn't afraid to show the "action" directly this time and doesn't shy away from the camera doesn't suggest this either. So, we have several truly interesting and bloody accidents that are striking and real enough to captivate (construction site, car, combine harvester), but the atmosphere is nonexistent. There are a lot of unnecessary peripheral that make it impossible for the plot to thicken and work on the tension. And the final twist isn’t surprising, either, it was expected considering the name of the director.
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When mom gets pissed, her offspring shakes with fear in the corner. When Mother Nature loses patience, not just human kind, but also good movies and Shya’s reputation go up the spout. Unfortunately. I sincerely don’t give a damn if this is meant seriously or not (of course it is), but the result is neither fish nor fowl. Occasionally ridiculous and unintentionally entertaining and at other moments precisely the type of movie I wanted to see (in a few shots Night comes closer to the atmosphere of “The" Birds by Du Maurier than Hitch himself does). Primarily the atmospheric landscapes with a myriad flowers were really impressive; look out, Gardener’s World. I’m sorry that in many scenes I find myself laughing at my favorite and not with him. But this isn’t downright ridiculous, nor is it boring and definitely not unbearable. But thanks to Wahlberg’s “acting performance", it is unintentionally camp. If it weren’t for him, I would go higher with the marks. And what’s the movie actually like? Hard to pin down. Sometimes it just ends up that way. In my eyes, this is the first and I hope the last time this happens for M. Shit happens. What happened happened. Too bad, today is another day. ♫ OST score: 3/5
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Except for Marky Mark’s somewhat odd performance and my expectation of a more powerful moral than just that people are mostly a bunch of scumbags who deserve to die (btw our Slovak brothers' title ‘Event’, is a catchier than the Czech ‘It Happened’) I quite liked it. The opening scenes, especially the one with the flying workers, are flawless and people behave wonderfully freakishly. Zooey Deschanel was fantastic as was John Leguisam's mathematician. Shy the director still knows how to make a movie. He can create the right atmosphere and so on, but Shy the screenwriter should take a break for a while. Wait for better ideas and prepare a big comeback. Too bad he didn't have a jab at Potter.
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Gallery (122)
Photo © Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
![The Happening - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/160/817/160817890_6eee30.jpg)
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