The Subjective Lightness Of Being: The Happening (a spoiler or two below)

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Happening (a spoiler or two below)

I've been somewhat lagging on the movie reviews lately. I'll try to catch up in the next couple of entries.

I went and saw The Happening about a month ago. I had high hopes for this movie. I liked what I saw from the preview, which wasn't a lot. Previews that leave me more curious about the movie in question usually get me in the theater more times than not. The fact it's an M. Night Shamalamadingdong film had me more intrigued. I was on the fence with The Lady In The Water, hated The Village, and wasn't that into Signs. Mind you, I feel that all those films had promise. Each one of them had the same problem in my mind, and that was the story.

The acting in The Happening was good. I have become quite partial to Mark Wahlberg over the years. It was with Shooter and The Departed that I decided I'm a fan of his work. Here, he plays a high school Science teacher. Zooey Deschanel plays his wife....meeeeooooowwwww. John Leguizamo is also in the film and plays a fellow teacher at the high school.

At the beginning of the movie, people start acting weird and begin offing themselves as if they are being controlled by some power. There's a scene in the high school class room where Mark Wahlberg's character is discussing how nature has a habit of attacking or inflicting disasters. He discussed how the bee population has been dying off. This scene pretty much clued me in to what this movie was about.

So pretty much, the trees are angry. Global Warming....nature has started viewing people as a threat so the trees communicate to each other and send this toxin that affects people's brains making them kill themselves.

It's kind of a far fetched idea but I accepted the choice in the story. I expected a bit more from the movie in regards to what caused this. Instead, the movie didn't really tie of the loose ends at the end of the story. It was presented as a warning to the human race, that mother nature will remove the threat if we don't start treating the planet better. That's what I got from the film.

Overall, I was entertained and my interest was kept. I liked the way the film was shot, how there was hardly any gore shown in the movie. It reinforced my opinion that you don't need blood or gore to depict horror. Still, the way the movie end left a bad taste in my mouth.

I wanted more from the story. Just like Lady In The Water and The Village. I'm starting to feel that Shyamalan is suffering from the Stephen King syndrome of coming up with good ideas but not knowing how to end a story well.

If I had stars, I'd give this movie 3 out of 5.