[Movie Review] THE HAPPENING
Indulge me for a second, why don’t you… If you started a job and performed superbly well in the first couple of months in order to make a good impression, but then started to slack off once your probation was over to the point that over the course of your tenure you started to lose your employer money and/or destroy their reputation then sooner or later you’d expect to get your ass tossed out onto the curb wouldn’t you?
The movie industry is clearly a different beast though is it not? Not only is this the same industry that continually gives work to Orlando Bloom despite the fact that every movie he has headlined flops and flops badly, but it’s also the same place where a director like M Night. Shymalan can go from The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable to Signs and The Village, before punching through the bottom of the barrel and crawling around in the quagmire with The Lady In The Water (truly one of the most abysmal films I’ve ever seen) and this, his latest, The Happening.
Shymalan is the directorial equivalant of the guy down the pub, drunk on his own bravado, talking about how ‘hard as nails’ he is, only to get punched out by some dweeb pissed off with hearing his shit. He talks of his own greatness and his own talent but, let’s be honest, he’s a friggin’ “cult” attraction, if even that. How many people, outside of The Sixth Sense, go crazy for Unbreakable? Okay, a relatively impressive number! Signs? Less so. The Village? I know there’s fans out there but they’re not in my social stratosphere. Lady In The Water? Come on, be honest? Nobody!
The Happening?
Everything that is mildly acceptable about The Happening is as a result of the viewer continually asking themselves “What If?” What if there was someone of John Cusack or Nathan Fillion’s talent in the lead? What if the likes of John Leguizamo or Zooey Deschanel had a better script to work with? What if some of the film’s more bearable moments were put in the hands of a director like John Carpenter, Robert Rodriguez, Philip Noyce, Peter Berg, Roland Emmerich, Jon Faverau or even Spielberg?
If only the concept of an “environmental” disaster movie was placed in the hands of someone who could write and direct with some degree of talent then there is the possibility to come away with something of worth. With Shymalan, the only comment you end up muttering by movie’s end is ‘No wonder the film is so incompetently made - in Shymalan’s defence he can’t really get an idea as to what is going on with his own movie when his head is rammed so far up his own anus!’
I’ve never been a Mark Wahlberg fan. I’ve made no bones about that. His work in Boogie Nights is an exception and his role in The Departed is, pardon the pun, a departure from his normal standards of mediocrity I will admit but it’s still over-rated in my opinion. Think about it, Mark Wahlberg has an “Academy Award Nominee” tag to his name now. Kurt Russell, John Cusack, Eric Bana, Philip Baker Hall, John Ashton, Dennis Farina, James Gandolfini and many others do not. Come the fuck on here people!
By now word will have thankfully leaked as to what the actual “meat and veg” of The Happening is so we can all laugh heartily and point in Shymalan’s general direction at the sheer stupidity of a movie in which people try and outrun the wind! This is a film of sheer incompetence from the ground up. The sort of movie where its writer/director thinks filling the entire first act with variations of the line “What’s Happening?” qualifies as worthy, dramatic dialogue.
Zooey Deschanel and John Leguizamo are clearly very talented performers. There’s an age old saying that ‘no actor can make bad material good but a good actor can exist with integrity when working with such material’. Deschanel and Leguizamo do exactly that. If there’s any reason at all to see this movie then they are it. It’s not for any particular set piece or moment, it’s solely to see these two actors at work.
I was SO over the whole Shymalan “hype” as far back as Signs and his work has only got progressively worse from then on. The Happening is an improvement over Lady in the Water, but then again if he’d filmed me for two hours tryinig to squeeze milk from one of my man-tits then THAT would have been a considerable improvement on that piece of shit too!
To be absolutely honest though, Shymalan has proven once and for all that he’s got nothing left in the proverbial ‘tank’. Every impending release plays like more of a threat then a treat and, if I was the studio holding the purse strings on Shymalan’s upcoming Airbender movie, I’d be shitting bricks right now.
The following rating is given to Deschanel and Leguizamo, alone. As for the movie itself, in a summer schedule this jam-packed and with films like Butterfly on a Wheel and All The Boys Love Mandy Lane filling up the shelves as Blockbuster Exclusives, why would you want to waste time on this?
Sick of always seeing The Daily Star pop up on the posters with quotes for shit films, because they can’t find any others to use? Well, why not turn to us here at StalePopcorn. Shy’, mate, try this one on for size:
“The Happening Just Isn’t Happening!”
No? What about this?
“See The Latest M. Night Shymalan Movie NOW! The Twist Is… In Five Years Time He’ll Be Sucking Cock to Feed His Kids!”
- THE HAPPENING Happens To Get A Poster! (sorry!)
- Ridley Scott’s NOTTINGHAM Is Not-Happening-Man!
- [DVD Review R2] ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE
- [Movie Review] WANTED
- [DVD Review (R2)] WIND CHILL
5 Responses to “[Movie Review] THE HAPPENING”
I agree the fall in quality by this director is stunning! When I watched this film, I couldn’t help but ask myself if it were directed by a bad student filmaker!
The thing that really ****ing smarts on me the most though is that this guy doesn’t even have a back catalogue strong enough to carry him through a rough patch, unlike someone like John Carpenter who has made classic after classic after classic - then he hit a slump and they ****ed him over, denying him proper budgets, proper jobs etc. to the point that he couldn’t get out of said slump.
Shymahackalan though? He ****ed up Signs in is 3rd act. He delivered The Village AND Lady in the Water BACK TO ****ING BACK and they’re still giving him the keys to the kingdom!
Not on man, not on at all!
I just laughed my ass off. “we can all laugh heartily and point in Shymalan’s general direction at the sheer stupidity of a movie in which people try and outrun the wind!”
AHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!
I thank you Kristina!
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