At first glance, the previews for The Happening were extremely seductive - I instantly knew I had to see this thriller.
Then I saw it was another movie from M. Night Shyamalan, who has been disappointing me for years. I’m still bitter about The Village. I got pulled in thanks to the action in the previews, only to realize that by watching the previews, I had already seen all the action, and had no reason to sit through the rest of the film.
So I decided not to see this one, as it would just be a disappointment. Then why did I see it? I heard it was even worse than Lady in the Water, so I couldn’t resist watching it - I had to see just how bad an M. Night Shyamalan film could get!
[Spoiler alert: I'm going to be talking about some plot elements that some might view as spoilers, but with this movie, there's no secret plot twist or anything, and there's really no action to hide, so it's to reveal a "spoiler." So keep reading anyway.]
We start out around NYC and Philly where people start killing themselves for no reason. It just alludes to it though, and you hear some gun shots. No action.
Then it’s deemed a terrorist plot and kids are dismissed from school, and everyone goes on their merry way. Still no excitement, no sense of urgency.
Eventually more people in the area die and some wind whips through the trees. Despite being on the verge of death, people hang out at a local train station with their tickets, calmly awaiting a shuttle to a safer location. Not even one push or shove in the crowd!
And this whole thing goes on for a while. More dead bodies are encountered. Whoppity doo.
People are trying to get away, exactly like in War of the Worlds, minus the action. This is basically a copy of the whole driving away section, meeting an army ranger, taking shelter in a farm house, etc. Just no monsters or lunatic people. I think everyone in this movie is sedated.
Eventually someone says “I think it’s the plants” and goes into a spiel about how plants evolve and can release toxins into the air and some other crap. This was like 20 minutes into the movie, so they just kind of gave it away early. Not surprising though, because the wind whistled through the trees all along, and the film was originally titled “The Green Effect.”
So most people die and we follow a few key characters on their journey to safety. Still, just like War of the Worlds.
But here’s the big ending… SPOILER… the drama stops. No more wind gusts, no more suicides. And that’s it. At least in War of the Worlds, as lame as the ending is, it makes sense. In The Happening, there’s no reasoning, it’s just over.
And people live happily ever after. Yep, that’s the whole movie. No excitement, no graphic scenes. Just some eerie-sounding wind.
Another SPOILER… the big twist at the end… after the NYC area residents go back to normal, the film cuts to a scene in another country where the wind whips up and someone commits suicide. Uh oh, the trees are pissed off over there, too.
The end.
But not the end of my review… here’s the good part…
The whole thing must have been a joke. A very expensive and time consuming joke, but I think Shyamalan is just screwing with us. I mean, this movie was so awful there is no way it’s for real.
See, M Night knows he screwed up a few times. So he makes this one as a parody of his prior movies, just extremely bad on all levels (like, I had to laugh afterwards!) He’s laughing at himself.
This would have been better on April Fools day though.
But anyway, after this, M Night is going to make another movie that’s actually good. Yes, that’s my prediction.
Unless The Happening wasn’t a joke, in which case, I don’t even know what to say.
