The Happening

'The Happening did not happen'

Shyamalan tends to fall into one of two categories: love him or hate him. His early commercial work is undoubtedly his best with Signs and The Sixth Sense leading the way. Whereas his later work became too preachy with things like The Village and Lady in the Water. The truth of the matter is this, Shyamalan comes up with good ideas that involve a twist and then plays them out. Unfortunately, his dialogue and sometimes the twists and conclusions are not able to live up to the great premise he sets. The thing about Signs and The Sixth Sense that works is that they are able to make the viewers care about the characters more than the great premise, so that when the surprise twist comes, it really is a surprise. That and Shyamalan used to be more subtle when giving hints. He likes to have everything in the film tie together in some Hitchcockian manner. No loose ends. So, where does this film fit in his canon?

The Happening is no where near as bad as The Village and it is better than Lady, but it isn't able to capture the old genius of his original work. The premise is interesting and Shyamalan proves that he knows how to make a creepy film. Most directors love to show gore, why? Because they think it scares people. Not true, it grosses people out. A person being shot doesn't scare me, it just makes me want to vomit. It is not being able to see the consequences of forces beyond our understanding which scares mankind. Sixth Sense it was the dead. Signs had aliens. Village had a fictitious monster and Lady had some bizarre fairy tale come to life. The Happening also has an unknown force that is attacking the population. They explain it and how it makes sense and to be honest, after the movie, walking the dog on my street with no other humans present and only the hum of bees...it was creepy. Shyamalan for all of his faults knows how to scare people and how to get inside the human psyche for images and scenarios that will last a long time. His weakness, is his writing and working with actors.

The writing in this movie borders on ridiculous. Some scenes dialogue is so obvious in what it is supposed to do to the audience that it sounds like it was simply lifted from other movies. Of course, one or two moments might be okay and I'm sure people could blame this on Marky Mark. However, the truth is that Shyamalan hasn't taken the time since becoming famous to hone his dialogue as much as necessary to produce what is needed. The ties to the environmental crisis is blatantly clear and now my head hurts thanks to his clubbing.

As for the actors, here is where this movie succeeds and dies. EVERYONE ELSE EXCEPT for the two leads do a great job. I know some have said that John Leguizamo is bleh, but honestly, his character and the self-sacrificing choices he makes are great to watch and are believable. Whoever plays Ms. Jones is psychotic and lovely to watch. Even the two kids are great. However, Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel have NO CHEMISTRY. None. I know the dialogue is supposed to help and every once in a while we see that Mark Wahlberg can be upset and or charming. That's it. Zooey can look wide-eyed and crazy. So why does this matter? What is this film about? It's about The Happening and the environmental crisis. What does it need to be about to be a good film? The relationship and healing of the two main character's love and relationship with each other. THIS IS THE BIGGEST FLAW IN THE FILM. Shyamalan has done a decent job of almost recapturing the glory of his first few films, but he put too much focus in the wrong place and a good film is a more subtle film. He needs to remember that his films require subtlety and that he can't just throw in the towel when presented with a problem he can't think of to fix right away. The good news is that this film shows he is making improvements and steps to recapture his former days, the bad news is that it is not there yet and a lot of great visuals and a good premise is now wasted on only an okay movie. I wonder how many premises he has left? Lets hope we see him figure things out before it is too late.

3.4 out of 5

Wannabe