~iamphoto

So I figured I may as well review this film, as i've just come back from seeing it.

I've seen most of Shamalanalanalanalan's films.
The Sixth Sense was good, but had so many plot holes it was funny. Bruce Willis continues to live with his wife a year after he unknowingly died, yet he is oblivious to the fact she, as well as everyone else in his life is completely ignoring him and has been all that time? Your partner giving you the cold shoulder for a few days is understandable I guess, but a whole year? Come on.

The Village was good, I liked the atmosphere. I have mixed views about Unbreakable, I felt the twist ending was poor and had no real relevance to the film. I havn't seen Signs or Lady in the Water.



*SPOILERS!*


Anyway, The Happening.

My general thought was is that the concept is good, but I felt it was executed badly. So the plants have had enough of us and want revenge, so they send out a toxin which for some reason only affects people in groups, that makes you want to kill yourself in any way possible, OK.
Instead of following the story of them trying to escape the toxin and the even more pointless and over-done story of Marky Mark and his permanently wide-eyed wife Alma's rocky and awkwardly acted relationship, they should have focused more on the toxin itself, why it's supposedly 'Happening'. Although I felt it certainly wasn't 'Happening'.


The film starts with mass suicides in Central Park, some oblivious Claire girl, who looks surprisingly like Claire from LOST, starts to act confused before using her hairpin to kill herself, which then sets off everyone else, but not animals strangely, to find a way to kill themselves. There is an interesting scene that was well directed, where it essentially tells the story of a gun travelling from one victim to the other, but it was pretty brief.

Then Marky Mark comes in. His acting in this film is pretty poor, and he's an even less convincing teacher. Like you'd tell one of your students he's good looking and his nose will grow. I'm sure he'd last long as a teacher. And he has a brief moment of thinking he's teaching primary school when he runs around the class to avoid the Vice Principle. Right...

So he recieves the news, as does everyone else, which causes a strangely calm evacuation of wherever the hell they were to somewhere up-north, where apparently it isn't 'Happening'. Luckily a hot-dog loving hippy turns up to offer them a ride, which they take obviously, but not Marky Mark's friend. No, instead he goes to somewhere else to find his wife, foolishly leaving his surprisingly calm, cute 8 year old daughter with a once rapper and his still shocked looking wife. Good idea!

Well his plan to find his wife dosn't go well, as they soon all die, which is a shame considering he was one of the only decent actors in this movie.


Much of the middle part of the film felt ' padded ', even though the film was only 90 minutes long. Some parts I did enjoy though, and if you are considering seeing it, I feel this point in the film has some of the best scenes.


Towards the end of the film the three remaining main characters find an old woman's house, who is oblivious to the fact most of North America is in chaos, and she lets them stay the night. However, all does not go well...
Marky Mark wakes up the next morning only to find a doll which looks strangely like the little girl they are trying to protect. I thought at this point it was the little girl, and the plants had run out of killing ideas so made her into a wooden doll. The old woman now starts knocking her house down with her head, causing Marky Mark to flee.

I won't give too much away at this point, but this is one of the more inevitable scenes of the film.

We then go three months into the future, where they are living happily as a family, and the news report says we shouldn't harm nature anymore. I'm surprised Al Gore didn't make a cameo at some point - 'I told you so!'
The film then moves to Paris, where nature starts going crazy again.

I didn't like the ending at all though. Unlike his other films where the twist ending seemed force but sometimes cool, I feel this actually could have benefitted from a twist.




So, overall I felt the film had a very good atmosphere, it was at times well directed and the cinematographer did a good job. The story is often too stupid for belief though, as many times during the film the character's have moments of laughter and calm, which i'm sure isn't their priority considering there is an invisible desease going around that can kill you at any moment.

I did laugh at one point in the film, when the hot-dog loving hippy comes to the conclusion that it is indeed the plants that are doing this, yet they are in a greenhouse surrounded by them and they make no attempt to leave quickly, Marky Mark's wife is even laughing at this point for some reason.

I also never realised why, despite knowing it is the plants releasing this toxin, the characters continue running trough the countryside.
There is a good, but very cheesy scene, where the wind is essentially chasing them. Marky Mark also starts talking to a plant, telling it we'll only be in 'it's' house for a minute. Yes, i'm sure it would be considerate. Then there's a twist because the plant actually isn't real, but he continues to talk to it anyway!
This is probably the biggest twist in the whole movie.

These plants sure can think of ways to make people kill themselves though. Hanging, lawn mower and quite an awkward scene at the start of the movie that clearly relates to the 9/11 attacks.


The acting is also pretty poor throughout. I felt the best acting came from the little girl even though she only had a few lines, usually just her crying.


Overall - 6/10