Early review of "The Happening"

this is not a good sign....


"The Happening" is a terrible, terrible movie. I mean, it's bad on an epic scale. It's so bad that I can't possibly tell you how bad it is without understating the point or making it sound like I'm picking on the film. But let me stress: this is not pent-up Shyamalan aggression or a desire to see him fail. This is bad in a jaw-dropping "they can't really be serious, can they?" kind of way. The closest comparison I can draw is to Neil LaBute's "Wicker Man" and, like that film, the only consolation I can offer potential theater-goers is that you might want to see it just to be in on the ground floor when the film gets its ass handed back to it.

I can also throw out that I'm not certain if the version I saw was the final version. It certainly felt rough but compared pretty dead-on with what I remembered from the script. The score, certainly, was missing and while that can really work wonders in the final form, I can't imagine it coming close to saving "The Happening".

The story is relatively simple and I don't want to venture too far into spoiler territory. Picture "The Birds" without any birds, and that should give you a good idea of what Shyamalan seems to be going for. Suddenly and for seemingly no reason a neuro-toxin is released in the Northeastern United States that causes people to murder themselves in terrible ways. The effect sweeps through different towns and everyone races to escape, unsure of what's really going on. The lead, Mark Wahlberg, is a schoolteacher who is on the outs with wife Zooey Deschanel. They flee together with a few other strangers and try to figure out what has caused the deadly outbreak.

The most obvious fault in "The Happening" is the acting -- in particular Wahlberg's performance. I'm saying this with no hyperbole, but Wahlberg might very well give the worst performance I've ever seen in anything. He's that bad. His character is a passive aggressive high-school teacher and each line in delivered with nasally whines that sound like some strange parody. As bad as the rest of the movie is, Wahlberg is the part that the internet is going to eat alive. But is it really his fault? Wahlberg's proven himself with "I (Heart) Huckabees" and his amazing turn in "The Departed". I can't help but feel that Shyamalan -- intentionally or otherwise -- is ultimately to blame for forcing some truly awful line readings.

The rest of the cast is passable but nothing special. Zooey Deschanel is extremely cute but never really does anything that matters. She's very similar to a lot of female Shyamalan characters: the recent-love-that-didn't-work-out. John Leguizamo probably does the best job of maneuvering around clunky, awkward dialogue as another schoolteacher and friend to Wahlberg but he's also barely in the film and only really serves the purpose of, fairly early on, having Wahlberg and Deschanel watch after his little girl for the duration of the film.

I bring the acting up first only because it's the most damning aspect of "The Happening", but the pacing is issue number two. The film moves at a ridiculous speed and bits that seemed, on the page, like they'd be perfect for Shyamalan's slow, long-running shots are rushed through and made laughable. The opening -- which consists of a couple different scenes of people hurting themselves -- almost flashes by and instead of being genuinely disturbing, they're overly melodramatic and come off as fake. There's something scary about someone not realizing they're hurting themselves -- as we do see at one point through a cell-phone video of a man walking casually into a lion cage and being torn apart -- and something just plain stupid about forced shock like we get in a long, choreographed steadicam of people one by one shooting themselves, dropping the gun and letting the next person pick it up.

But this all just flashes by. There's a problem and we cut to a school where the students take unrealistically in stride that the world is pretty much ending. The characters are so far removed from reality that, when news of the disaster hits, it makes you wonder if Shyamalan ever stepped outside his house on 9/11. There's no panic or disorder and everyone freely accepts their information from the high school itself and goes home. No one's getting texts or making phone calls or demanding that someone explain what's happening.

Wahlberg and Deschanel take in Leguizamo's little girl while he goes off to look for his wife. There's all kinds of Spielberg "War of the Worlds" on the road bits, but they're segmented and awkward. They're on a train for a bit. They're in a diner for a bit. They meet a soldier for a bit. They come to a farmhouse with a trigger-happy farmer. Nothing really sticks out as interesting or meaningful and all the while Wahlberg makes up crazy, crazy theories about how the neurotoxin works without any real evidence or logic. And, of course, he's right.

Here's the bit that I'm honestly not sure if it's a spoiler or not so consider yourself warned: (highlight to read)
It's plants that are responsible. They've decided to wipe out humanity and release the neuro-toxin as their natural weapon. This was far, far more clear in the script (and even the title "The Green Effect") and I'm really of the opinion that it's a pretty neat idea, though. What Shyamalan quickly finds, though, is that it's very, very hard to menacingly cut to an evil-looking tree. That doesn't stop him from trying, though, and he inexplicably adds wind as a way of livening up the scenes. When the leaves of a tree start to blow, evil's afoot. It's really, really hard not to laugh at and there's even a real groaner of a gag-scene wherein Wahlberg timidly apologizes to a houseplant only to find that it's made of rubber. Really.


After moving way, way too fast over the interesting parts, there's an incredibly long and slow period where Mark, Zooey and little girl run afoul of a friendly old lady who instantly and for no particular reason explains that her house is of a bizarre architectural design (built for hiding slaves). She just sort of tells them this right off the bat and, believe it or not, it soon comes into play as a plot device.

If you're dreading the Shyamalan trademark twist-ending, you can breathe a sigh of relief. There's no twist whatsoever. But there's also no ending. I won't ruin it any further by talking about what's not there, but prepare to feel very, very cheated and figure out in advance what consultation you can offer when the person next you confusedly asks, "Is that it?"

Seeing a Shyamalan has become this horrifically abusive relationship where I desperately cling to the belief that if I keep loving him, he'll stop hitting me. I'm already telling myself that "The Last Airbender" will be fascinating because its an adaptation rather than an original creation. That'll help, right? Because "The Happening" just makes me want to cry.