If you planned on seeing “The Happening” tonight…
You might want to stay home and clean out the fridge, instead. It would be much more entertaining, and you probably won’t feel like you have wasted 91 minutes of your life!
I just got back from seeing M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie, “The Happening“. The only thing that happened during that movie - was me feeling guilty for spending $6.75. As I said earlier this week - I really, really wanted to like this movie. After a promising start of a career - MNS went on to make some disastrous mistakes (can anyone say “Lady in the Water“?).
I knew this movie wasn’t going to be pay-full-price-movie-good, so I decided to hit the matinee instead. And to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have even spent $1.00 at the Red Box to rent it - had I known what this dumb-ass movie was really about.
I want sooooooooooo badly to tell you what this “mysterious toxin” is that’s making everyone inexplicably kill themselves. It was so bad…I actually heard people (besides myself) snickering, and laughing out loud.
If you’re at all interested in the “spoiler” of the movie, then leave me a comment, I’ll answer you there.
If you LOVED “The Village” and “Lady in the Water” - then this is the movie for you! But, if you actually enjoy movies, and prefer to NOT be tortured…I would definitely SKIP this movie. I felt bad for Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel...this will go down as one of those “what was I thinking” movies.
UGH…it was painful!!!
Message for Mr. M. Night Shyamalan:
Good sir,
I truly loved “Sixth Sense“. I might even say I loved “Signs“. “Unbreakable” wasn’t unbearable, but that might have been because Bruce Willis was in it - and I’d pay to see him do just about anything.
But then you bring us “The Village“, the mind-numbing “Lady in the Water” and the unbelievably TERRIBLE “The Happening“.
I am REALLY amazed that there are studios that still allow you to make movies. I honestly don’t know how this movie made it past the drawing board.
I think you make an amazing director - but I am begging you to quit writing. It’s just not happening… no pun intended.
Jocelyn
June 13th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I would like to know what the toxin is
June 13th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Okay…I really wanted to see this movie, but I felt the same way about Lady in the Water as you did-2 hours that you’re never going to get back. So, I’d like to save my duckets…what’s killing the people?
June 13th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I want to know what the “mysterious toxin” is.
June 13th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
What is making people kill themselves? I am not going to watch it but I’d like to know how bad it was. LOL on the letter to him, I totally agree.
Thanks,
Lisa
June 13th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I was planning on seeing the movie, now i think otherwise. what is the toxin?
June 13th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Okay - so…drumroll please…
The toxin is coming FROM THE PLANTS AND TREES. To make a long story short, there is a deadly toxin that is coming off the plantlife that makes people kill themselves.
Bascially - it’s some survival mechanism inside the trees and plants… because the big bad humans are overpopulating or some shit like that. It really is beyond ridiculous. I kept thinking “it can’t really the plants, and trees…that’s just too stupid.” But that was it! No shocking ending - no cliffhanger…it’s killer plants!
Can you believe that! Killer freaking trees!?
Sooooooooooo bad.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
It’s plants, isn’t it, Jocelyn? Is it plants?
June 13th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
i want to know what is making them kill themselves. my friend is trying to get me to see it and i dont want to. help me give her a good reason.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
lmao…thats funny…plants and trees
June 13th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Ohhh good grief!! I’m sure the tree huggers are going to love that!!
June 13th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Were they at least SCARY trees????????
June 13th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I want to know the spolier
June 13th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Jocelyn, you should be a movie critic! You are so funny in your reviews… I love it!
June 13th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Nerd Girl:
Thanks
I don’t usually review movies to quite this extent…but I felt moved to tell you guys how horrible this movie is. I’m really surprised - to be honest - this movie even got made. I mean - wow.
Sparkly:
There were no scary trees. It was like watching a documentary - but in this movie, the wind was deadly. They were running from the wind!!
So lame.
June 14th, 2008 at 7:15 am
You know, anyone who poo-poohs Lady in the Water automatically loses any form of credible cinematic opinion to me.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Well, I was with Jocelyn at the movie and was one of the ones laughing and crying out to the screen, “Are you kidding me?” I don’t even think it was an attempt to be an environmental propaganda piece, as he didn’t even draw that point home. I was kind of hoping it would be the bee angle that the handsome science teacher (Marky Mark) was talking about, but noooo, off Night went on some trail that was so pathetic. I love your note to M. Night Schmawhatever and do hope he’ll stumble upon your site honey. However, I even disagree w/you about his directing skills. The boy’s swimming against the tide and needs to go back to the kiddy pool and start over or something. After all that talk over the years about M.NightSch… being the name above the title and all, ugh, his efforts should simply be a post script now and I’ll not put down any more money for one of his movies again. I wish I’d put it into my gas tank instead. All involved w/this one should hang their heads in shame and the movie house that released it, that we’d never even heard of before should close doors and call it a day. Ugh, what a waste ……
June 14th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
You are so right..
I saw this movie yesterday and when it was over the entire theater was complaining and laughing at the way it turned out. It was so unbelievably predictable and just plain weird. I really don’t see the big hype about MNS, he hasn’t made anything worthwhile since The sixth sense.
June 16th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
how pathetic was this movie? made wonderful actor Mark Wahlberg look like a total dork! what was with crazy lady (Betty Buckley)? that whole situation had NOTHING to do with the plot (and pathetic plot at that!) oh no, I’d better not bitch about the movie… THE TREES MIGHT GET MAD AT ME!!! (lol)
June 16th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
have you ever seen Mark Wahlberg kiss on screen? i swear it’s like he is trying to eat her face or lick the hell out of it. i really do think he is sexy in a weird way, but when i see the way he kisses, it turns me off!
June 16th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I’ve heard so many bad reviews about this movie…but I saw it and actually really enjoyed it.
If you have 2 brain cells you would see what M. Night Shamalamadingdong was really trying to say.
It actually made REALLY good sense and I thought it was awesome that he took a topic like humans destroying the planet and tried to make it “hip, cool and scary.”
I liked it a lot - but maybe that’s just because I realize that humans really ARE fucking up this planet and it’s sad that others can’t see it as well.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:20 am
OMG! Yeah Kristan! I’m not the only one who calls him M. Night Shamalamadingdong!
June 17th, 2008 at 8:16 am
so is that what the shocker is? Killer plant toxins? Or is there something else that is the famous MNS twist?
I already knew it was plants. It was in the synopsis of some movie site that I read.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:18 am
I forgot to add that the same site actually said that he brought his idea to a BUNCH of different studios and they all turned him down except the one that finally took it.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I knew it was going to be bad when at the start of the movie you saw some random logo for a studio in India! I thought ‘Oh no, all the major studios passed!’. Haha…
June 17th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I saw this movie and it was freaking awesome. Obviously you can’t appreciate movies that make you think. Sucks to be you.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
This movie was a complete waste of time. It felt like it was a big environmentalist statement. This movie was B movie entertainment at its worst. 4/10 stars. Like Jocelyn said, No shocking ending - no cliffhanger. I was very disappointed!
June 17th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Lala,
You’re right. It does SUCK to be me. Way to hit the nail on the head. I don’t know how I didn’t just LOVE this piece of crap.
You’re right!
June 18th, 2008 at 4:54 am
I loved Sixth Sense, and enjoyed Unbreakable, and to a lesser degree Signs and The Village. There were elements of The Lady in the Water that I enjoyed, but overall it was too confusing to say I liked it.
As for The Happening: It was much easier to understand than Lady in the Water, but not as good as Sixth Sense. It sort of reminded me of some of Stephen King’s stories. But I didn’t consider it a waste of money when compared to the majority of crap movies coming out of Hollywood, which seem to mostly be either remakes of already done movies, or over-acted, poorly written stupid comedies.
I appreciate that each and every one of Shyamalan’s movies have been original, and either totally surprised me, or had me gripped in fear or suspense through many of the scenes.
I find it strange that SO many people seem to enjoy knocking him down; is it because of his early successes: Non-successful people enjoying watching successful people failing? Or maybe it’s because of rumors I’ve heard that he’s hard to work with/for — a male diva perhaps? I’m not saying this is one of my favorite movies, but I did enjoy something original and not totally stupid.
June 18th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I loved it. I did scare me and I couldn’t sleep the night I watched it.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I saw this with two college-aged kids. I couldn’t believe they liked it–I thought it sucked BIG time. I can live with an environmental slant and that could even be cool if M Night had developed it a little differently, but the premise was WAY too simplistic. And my god–the acting (or should I say overacting) was awful. I’ve seen Zooey and Mark do credible work, so I can only conclude that they were “directed” this way. Ouch. I have definitely spent my last hard-earned dollar on this ass clown.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:16 pm
seriously, its not bad. i watched it the night before and i thoroughly enjoyed it. with global warming and all, its really makes some sense. evolution CAN make plants react that way, to produce some toxic which kills humans. why not? at least it has some creativity.