Review #113: The Happening (2008)

Cast/Notable Credits:
M. Night Shyamalan (Director): The Sixth Sense (1999), Signs (2002), The Village (2004)

Mark Wahlberg (Elliot): Fear (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), The Perfect Storm (2000), Planet of the Apes (2001), The Big Hit (1998)

Zooey Deschanel (Alma): Elf (2003), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Bridge to Terabithia (2007), Yes Man (2008)

John Leguizamo (Julian): Die Hard 2 (1990), Super Mario Brothers (1993), Spawn (1997), Ice Age Trilogy, Land of the Dead

Betty Buckley (Miss Jones): Carrie (1976)

Spencer Breslin (Josh): The Kid (2000), The Cat in the Hat (2003), The Shaggy Dog (2006)

Trailer:


Plot:

The movie starts off in Central Park where New Yorkers are going about their own daily business when a gust of wind blows through the trees and people in the park start committing mass suicides. Construction workers heave themselves off buildings, and a lady stabs herself in the neck with a hair pin. Hey, not a bad start here. I can dig it.

The story breaks the air waves and the popular belief is that it's a terrorist attack. Some how terrorists have released a deadly toxin in the air the starts a chain reaction with the brain's chemistry that makes people oft themselves. Those evil-doers are at it again! M. Night Suck-a-lon Happens to be one of them, because the movie loses my interest afterwards. Note: STOP THE MOVIE RIGHT NOW IF YOU'VE ALREADY MADE THE MISTAKE IN RENTING IT!

Moving forward...in Philadelphia, school teacher Elliot Moore returns home to his "on the fringe marriage" with his wife Alma. They pack their bags and decide to take the train out of town in fear of large cities being attacked. Tagging along is Elliot's friend Julian and his daughter Jess. The four head out of town and shortly in their wake, a Philly park is the epicenter of another series of mass suicides.

The train abruptly stops after losing contact with the operators and all passengers are left on their own. Elliot's pack travel to a local diner to learn that the upper eastern seaboard has been effective by this epidemic and they are stuck 90 miles from the edge of the hot zone. Julian leaves Jess under the care of Elliot as he ventures back to Princeton to find his wife. A dumb move on his part because it's becoming clear that anyone in the areas are dead by now. What a father he turned out to be, instead of protecting his child, he pawns her off and runs off to find his statistically proven already dead wife in an affected epidemic zone.

Elliot, Alma and Jess hitch a ride with a hippie couple through the country back roads of Pennsylvania. The hippie couple believes that the attack is brought on by...are you ready for this?...plants and not terrorists. Yes. Plants. The theory is that plants have become threatened by the human race and has released deadly toxins into the air to neutralize the threat. The killer plants release their toxins in heavily populated sections and the wind blows it through the air. Guess what? It Happens that the hippies are right. Killer pissed off plants.

Bottom line for survival is...travel in small groups. Oh wait, the movie violates that rule along the way as Elliot and company travel on foot through the country lands and survives a "killer plant wind attack" while looking for a place to stay and wait it out. Unfortunately the know-it-all hippies fall victims along the way as Elliot's group finds shelter.

They hook up at an old lady's farm in the boonies. She is completely out of touch with the world, no radio or technology. She's a crazy old hag that lives by herself in the country lands growing her own food on the farm. Apparently the government has no interest on taxing her for her lands. The next morning the old lady falls prey to the killer plant toxin and Elliot becomes separated from Alma and Jess as they are trapped in the barn across the farm as he lays low in the house.

Threatened by dying lonely, they all decide to tempt fate and let love guide them to each other as they venture outside into the wind. They slowly walk across the yard that separated them as the wind howls through the grass and trees and then...nothing happens. The epidemic has stopped and everyone is free to go back to whatever they were doing. As Celine Dion puts it, ♫ "It's the Power of Love". ♫

Wait a second...did the epidemic stop because of the Power of Love, or did that just happen to be a coincidence at the same time it stopped? If it's because of the Power of Love, then I'm pissed. That's complete bull crap. The Power of Love saves the day in a horror movie? It Happens that I want to commit suicide now.

The experts and media theorize that it was a warning from nature to us, "that we are killing the planet". Others think it was the government since only the upper eastern seaboard was effected. The movie ends three months later in a park in France where "The Happening" starts over again. Sequel? I hope not.

M.Night Suck-a-lon sucks us into another one of his over hyped weird*ss thriller...or thrill-less...movies. The Happening is not like "happening cool". Its quite the opposite, it's not Happening. Something Happened and left a fowl stench behind. I Happened to almost fall asleep because I was so bored.

It Happened to be that all the acting was poor in this movie. They were horrible paper thin, cardboard cut out characters that displayed little emotion or acting abilities. Usually that's alright with me in horror movies, but when a movie is supposed to be "suspenseful" and the story is built around the characters and they end up being done poor, it just makes for a bad movie.

Mark Wahlberg Happened to be a horrible choice for the lead role. He was supposed to be an optimistic, goodie two shoes school teacher and husband. But that's not his character! Just stick to the cop and marine roles! Roles where you can shoot people, blow sh*t up and battle off evil monkeys. Or just go back to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. ♫ It's just them Good Vibrations! ♫

Zooey Deschanel round out the cast of "never should have been casted". I'm usually a big fan of hers, but she didn't fit in her role. Her character was a cardboard stoned faced, stuck up, cold hearted, crazy b*tch. She has beautiful bright blue eyes, and that's all she did in the film was stare with her eyes wide open into the camera. That's the highlight of her acting abilities in this one. Can her eyes Happen to get any wider?

I Happened to continue hating the pieces of crap this director puts out. The Sixth Sense was alright. I guessed the "twist" out when it originally Happened. So the rest of the movie was slow and boring for me. I didn't have the, "OMG I didn't see that coming!" moment.

Unbreakable was a unique idea with a sub par follow through. Samuel L.'s hair and outfit Happened to be just too over the top 70's style for me.

Signs...well Signs can suck my balls. That movie sucked. I had to watch it three times because I was sooo bored and kept falling asleep at various parts of the movie. Aliens who have a weakness to water attack a planet that is comprised of 66% water. Dumb asses. Why can't aliens come to Earth just to chill?

The Village...yeah...I don't know where to start. I'll just leave it as bad. Really Bad. After that movie, I put my foot down and said, "No more M. Night Suck-a-lon movies." I guess I Happened to be wrong. I saw this one.

I was able to skip the Lady in the Water movie, and intended to miss this one, but all the negative things I had heard about this film intrigued me to watch it. Kind of like the Deer in headlights affect. I know something bad is coming, but I just can't move. I'm glued to the film. I get that way a lot with bad movies. Mainly because the remote falls a foot or two from my reach and I'm too lazy to get up and get it. Therefore, I end up suffering through a lot of horrible movies.

I Happen to recommend not watching this film. Take every one's word for it, "It sucked." Save yourself the money and don't rent or buy this. In fact, any time M. Night Suck-a-lon comes out with another movie, steer away my friend. Maybe years from now, Rob Zombie's kid can direct a re-imagining of this film.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on June 13, 2008 and made $64.5 million at the Box Office ($30.5 million opening weekend)
-Zooey Deschanel went to high school with Kate Hudson; sister is Emily Deschanel (Bones T.V. series)
-85% of the movie takes place outside
-Answer to Julian's math riddle: $10,737,418.23