REVIEW - The Happening

Here is the latest in a continuing series of reviews of terrible films. We're taking the hit so you don't have to. You're welcome.

You see, what happened here was that M. Night Shyamalan thought he was Hitchcock. But he isn't.

Shyamalan "wrote" and "directed" this piece of celluloid retardedness. I put those in quotes because the actors involved in this - relatively talented people like Marky Mark Wahlberg, John Leguizamo, and the lovely Zooey Deschanel - walk around saying the most retarded sentences I have ever heard. Most of the dialogue in the film sounds like George Lucas wrote the script, except there's no lightsabers or spaceships or robots to distract you. It's just terrible, terrible dialogue. And all these actors look like they'd like some direction on some of these line readings, but apparently none was forthcoming.

I was trying to figure out what exactly M. Night was doing while his actors were wandering around aimlessly in front of the camera (since he sure wasn't directing them), and I really don't know. The film LOOKS great, but more than anything else I'd have to say that's more the work of Cronenweth Award-winning cinematographer Tak Fujimoto than anything else. Fujimoto has always done great work, and The Happening is no exception.

An impassioned plea to the children of the future: if you sit and watch a bunch of Hitchcock films, then decide to reverse-engineer an amalgamation of them, please have the good sense to make one that is not completely retarded. The Happening is a good case in point of what not to do. Okay, so it's not the birds this time, it's some other natural element (you'll get no spoilers from me here but believe me, it's even dumber than it initially seems). Everyone is killing themselves! Things is crayzee! Here is a scene: Marky Mark and everybody got on this train and the train stops in the middle of nowhere. Everyone gets out. Marky Mark goes up to the conductors and is like, "What is the deal?" One of the conductors is like, "We lost contact." "With who?" asks Marky. "Everyone," says the conductor, as we see, in the background behing Mr. Wahlberg, fellow train passengers OBVIOUSLY AND CALMLY TALKING TO PEOPLE ON THEIR CELPHONES. Also, look how Wahlberg has this constipated face because he's trying to look like he's working on figuring out this predicament. Is that acting? Seriously? Listen, I'm not busting on the guy, I saw The Departed, Wahlberg's got some serious chops. WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE? That is undirected acting, people. RIGHT THERE.

There are plot holes in this film large enough to drive a truck through. And while I felt the casting individually was okay, I really didn't buy the relationships between the characters. Mark Wahlberg is a science teacher who is best friends with John Leguizamo the math teacher? I did buy that Mark and Zooey Deschanel were a couple dealing with some marital problems, since they seemed pretty mismatched to begin with. But hey, that's life, right? NO MR. SHYAMALAN, IT IS A MOVIE. Cast chemistry counts. M. Night also thinks it's somehow edgy or cool or maybe he's trying to appeal to the gorehounds when he comes up with all these various methods people use to kill themselves. Yeah, that thing with the lawnmower: totally unnecessary. Sometimes, Mr. Shyamalan, it's what you DON'T see. Didn't you used to know that? And all that stuff in the third act with the old lady? What the heck? And that cop-out "explanation" at the end? I mean, seriously?

I kind of want to write a paragraph or two here regarding Zooey Deschanel's eyes, since they are almost a character of their own in the film. I don't know if Shyamalan did it on purpose, or maybe Fujimoto saw a good thing and went with it, or whatever, but Miss Zooey has the biggest, most expressive, bluest eyes ever. Part of it's probably a color process thing, but most of it is just nature. Of course, if you believe this film, NATURE WILL KILL YOU, in which case I await my death at the hand of Zooey Deschanel's eyeballs.I'm not going to labor this, since people have already pretty much heard all about how terrible this film is. I just wanted to enlighten readers to the fact that, no, the mainstream reviewers didn't get this one wrong; The Happening is a seriously retarded film.

Editor's Note: ZOOEY, PLEASE GET A NEW AGENT. I MEAN, YES MAN? JIM CARREY COMEDIES NOW? COME ON, YOU'RE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT. Also, apparently congratulations are in order. Ben Gibbard is a pretty awesome guy, now more than ever.