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Note: also appears on my film review site (ShaunMunro.co.uk). Thanks!
~~~
M. Night Shyamalan’s film career thus far is as erratic as any working filmmaker in Hollywood today – his first three features, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs were received to considerable acclaim, whilst his most recent pictures, The Village and The Lady in the Water, received less than stellar responses. As Shyamalan’s latest film hits screens, The Happening, which dictates a world in crisis following a global natural disaster, he strives to break the unfortunate rut he seems to have run himself into.
The Happening certainly begins promisingly, as a suicide epidemic begins sweeping northeast America, with droves of humans hurtling themselves from the roofs of buildings, and shooting themselves in the streets. Unfortunately, from the outset, the acting and script are an utter mess, and are responsible for numerous moments of unintentional hilarity throughout, as opposed to genuine terror. Mark Wahlberg has faced scathing criticism for his performance, but it is more Shyamalan’s script that fails the actors than anything. Wahlberg is strong-armed into delivering dire lines from start to finish, and is accompanied by a plethora of actors who evidently must be in the film only to complete the final payment on their new house, most of all the horrendously miscast John Leguizamo as a Maths teacher.
The film is at its best for the brief moments in which it leaves the audience (as well as the film’s subjects) in a confused frenzy. As the stunned observers attempt to gather their marbles, it is theorised that the suicide en masse is the cause of a terrorist gas attack, whilst news networks attempt to provide scientific explanations for the atrocity occurring. The accompanying slew of violent suicides aids in ratcheting the tension up, although Shyamalan rarely capitalises upon the film’s “R” rating enough to exclaim this tension.
The cut-and-dry explanation for what is happening is revealed a mere 20 minutes into the film, although you would be forgiven for missing it, given that it is followed by a wealth of dialogue-driven scenes which range from idiosyncratic to simply inane. From a man discussing the merit of hot dogs (claiming “hot dogs get a bad rap”), to Leguizamo’s character asking a panicked woman maths questions to calm her down, Shyamalan has evidently lost whatever knack he had for compelling, or even tolerable dialogue.
Shyamalan’s film even fails in depicting realistic human behaviour - his characters frequently leave their cars despite the fact that it is both unnecessary and potentially fatal (given the air-borne nature of the infection, combined with curious prevailing winds all over the northeast). Throw in a strange love story with so many angles that you never know quite what’s going on, and you have a laundry list of just a few of the film’s irredeemable missteps.
If you’re still not dissuaded from seeing The Happening, the deal-breaker is inevitably the laughably preposterous scene in which the protagonists attempt to outrun a large torrent of wind, a scene as horribly misguided as the escape from the killer ice in The Day After Tomorrow (a marginally better film, one hastens to add).
It can invariably be argued that Shyamalan has simply given up, or rather, he just wanted to have fun with the film, because there are at least two scenes of intentional (albeit cringe-worthy) comedy, namely one instance in which Wahlberg’s character speaks to a plant, which he discovers to be plastic, and continues to talk to. This is one of the few unqualified treats of the film, but The Happening is too smothered in pseudo-sexual tension and idiotic character choices to even lend the film a tangible campy quality.
The film’s final act is, in typical Shyamalan fashion, a tonal shift and a real curiosity. Shyamalan manages to justify his R rating in one instance, yet quickly throws us into the arms of a character who serves as little more than an eye-rollingly lazy metaphor for mother nature, sternly declaring “don’t touch what isn’t yours!”, among other choice sound bytes.
The climax has the potential to pull things together (as The Sixth Sense certainly did), yet when the film’s only viable antagonist is a large wall of air (as well as another 30-second danger which appears and acts as though plucked from a sub-standard computer game), there is little possible to salvage.
Try as Shyamalan might to deliver an uplifting, yet dichotomously sombre ending, his failure to develop his characters beyond the film’s litany of clichés results in a close that is muddled and saccharine in its flagrant idealism. The Happening may be regarded by some as a guilty pleasure, and whilst it is not without its head-scratching charms, it is a pleasure guilty enough to indict.
Thanks for reading,
Reefer
~~~
M. Night Shyamalan’s film career thus far is as erratic as any working filmmaker in Hollywood today – his first three features, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs were received to considerable acclaim, whilst his most recent pictures, The Village and The Lady in the Water, received less than stellar responses. As Shyamalan’s latest film hits screens, The Happening, which dictates a world in crisis following a global natural disaster, he strives to break the unfortunate rut he seems to have run himself into.
The Happening certainly begins promisingly, as a suicide epidemic begins sweeping northeast America, with droves of humans hurtling themselves from the roofs of buildings, and shooting themselves in the streets. Unfortunately, from the outset, the acting and script are an utter mess, and are responsible for numerous moments of unintentional hilarity throughout, as opposed to genuine terror. Mark Wahlberg has faced scathing criticism for his performance, but it is more Shyamalan’s script that fails the actors than anything. Wahlberg is strong-armed into delivering dire lines from start to finish, and is accompanied by a plethora of actors who evidently must be in the film only to complete the final payment on their new house, most of all the horrendously miscast John Leguizamo as a Maths teacher.
The film is at its best for the brief moments in which it leaves the audience (as well as the film’s subjects) in a confused frenzy. As the stunned observers attempt to gather their marbles, it is theorised that the suicide en masse is the cause of a terrorist gas attack, whilst news networks attempt to provide scientific explanations for the atrocity occurring. The accompanying slew of violent suicides aids in ratcheting the tension up, although Shyamalan rarely capitalises upon the film’s “R” rating enough to exclaim this tension.
The cut-and-dry explanation for what is happening is revealed a mere 20 minutes into the film, although you would be forgiven for missing it, given that it is followed by a wealth of dialogue-driven scenes which range from idiosyncratic to simply inane. From a man discussing the merit of hot dogs (claiming “hot dogs get a bad rap”), to Leguizamo’s character asking a panicked woman maths questions to calm her down, Shyamalan has evidently lost whatever knack he had for compelling, or even tolerable dialogue.
Shyamalan’s film even fails in depicting realistic human behaviour - his characters frequently leave their cars despite the fact that it is both unnecessary and potentially fatal (given the air-borne nature of the infection, combined with curious prevailing winds all over the northeast). Throw in a strange love story with so many angles that you never know quite what’s going on, and you have a laundry list of just a few of the film’s irredeemable missteps.
If you’re still not dissuaded from seeing The Happening, the deal-breaker is inevitably the laughably preposterous scene in which the protagonists attempt to outrun a large torrent of wind, a scene as horribly misguided as the escape from the killer ice in The Day After Tomorrow (a marginally better film, one hastens to add).
It can invariably be argued that Shyamalan has simply given up, or rather, he just wanted to have fun with the film, because there are at least two scenes of intentional (albeit cringe-worthy) comedy, namely one instance in which Wahlberg’s character speaks to a plant, which he discovers to be plastic, and continues to talk to. This is one of the few unqualified treats of the film, but The Happening is too smothered in pseudo-sexual tension and idiotic character choices to even lend the film a tangible campy quality.
The film’s final act is, in typical Shyamalan fashion, a tonal shift and a real curiosity. Shyamalan manages to justify his R rating in one instance, yet quickly throws us into the arms of a character who serves as little more than an eye-rollingly lazy metaphor for mother nature, sternly declaring “don’t touch what isn’t yours!”, among other choice sound bytes.
The climax has the potential to pull things together (as The Sixth Sense certainly did), yet when the film’s only viable antagonist is a large wall of air (as well as another 30-second danger which appears and acts as though plucked from a sub-standard computer game), there is little possible to salvage.
Try as Shyamalan might to deliver an uplifting, yet dichotomously sombre ending, his failure to develop his characters beyond the film’s litany of clichés results in a close that is muddled and saccharine in its flagrant idealism. The Happening may be regarded by some as a guilty pleasure, and whilst it is not without its head-scratching charms, it is a pleasure guilty enough to indict.
Thanks for reading,
Reefer
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Note: also appears on my film review site (ShaunMunro.co.uk). Thanks!
~~~
M. Night Shyamalan’s film career thus far is as erratic as any working filmmaker in Hollywood today – his first three features, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs were received to considerable acclaim, whilst his most recent pictures, The Village and The Lady in the Water, received less than stellar responses. As Shyamalan’s latest film hits screens, The Happening, which dictates a world in crisis following a global natural disaster, he strives to break the unfortunate rut he seems to have run himself into.
The Happening certainly begins promisingly, as a suicide epidemic begins sweeping northeast America, with droves of humans hurtling themselves from the roofs of buildings, and shooting themselves in the streets. Unfortunately, from the outset, the acting and script are an utter mess, and are responsible for numerous moments of unintentional hilarity throughout, as opposed to genuine terror. Mark Wahlberg has faced scathing criticism for his performance, but it is more Shyamalan’s script that fails the actors than anything. Wahlberg is strong-armed into delivering dire lines from start to finish, and is accompanied by a plethora of actors who evidently must be in the film only to complete the final payment on their new house, most of all the horrendously miscast John Leguizamo as a Maths teacher.
The film is at its best for the brief moments in which it leaves the audience (as well as the film’s subjects) in a confused frenzy. As the stunned observers attempt to gather their marbles, it is theorised that the suicide en masse is the cause of a terrorist gas attack, whilst news networks attempt to provide scientific explanations for the atrocity occurring. The accompanying slew of violent suicides aids in ratcheting the tension up, although Shyamalan rarely capitalises upon the film’s “R” rating enough to exclaim this tension.
The cut-and-dry explanation for what is happening is revealed a mere 20 minutes into the film, although you would be forgiven for missing it, given that it is followed by a wealth of dialogue-driven scenes which range from idiosyncratic to simply inane. From a man discussing the merit of hot dogs (claiming “hot dogs get a bad rap”), to Leguizamo’s character asking a panicked woman maths questions to calm her down, Shyamalan has evidently lost whatever knack he had for compelling, or even tolerable dialogue.
Shyamalan’s film even fails in depicting realistic human behaviour - his characters frequently leave their cars despite the fact that it is both unnecessary and potentially fatal (given the air-borne nature of the infection, combined with curious prevailing winds all over the northeast). Throw in a strange love story with so many angles that you never know quite what’s going on, and you have a laundry list of just a few of the film’s irredeemable missteps.
If you’re still not dissuaded from seeing The Happening, the deal-breaker is inevitably the laughably preposterous scene in which the protagonists attempt to outrun a large torrent of wind, a scene as horribly misguided as the escape from the killer ice in The Day After Tomorrow (a marginally better film, one hastens to add).
It can invariably be argued that Shyamalan has simply given up, or rather, he just wanted to have fun with the film, because there are at least two scenes of intentional (albeit cringe-worthy) comedy, namely one instance in which Wahlberg’s character speaks to a plant, which he discovers to be plastic, and continues to talk to. This is one of the few unqualified treats of the film, but The Happening is too smothered in pseudo-sexual tension and idiotic character choices to even lend the film a tangible campy quality.
The film’s final act is, in typical Shyamalan fashion, a tonal shift and a real curiosity. Shyamalan manages to justify his R rating in one instance, yet quickly throws us into the arms of a character who serves as little more than an eye-rollingly lazy metaphor for mother nature, sternly declaring “don’t touch what isn’t yours!”, among other choice sound bytes.
The climax has the potential to pull things together (as The Sixth Sense certainly did), yet when the film’s only viable antagonist is a large wall of air (as well as another 30-second danger which appears and acts as though plucked from a sub-standard computer game), there is little possible to salvage.
Try as Shyamalan might to deliver an uplifting, yet dichotomously sombre ending, his failure to develop his characters beyond the film’s litany of clichés results in a close that is muddled and saccharine in its flagrant idealism. The Happening may be regarded by some as a guilty pleasure, and whilst it is not without its head-scratching charms, it is a pleasure guilty enough to indict.
Thanks for reading,
Reefer
~~~
M. Night Shyamalan’s film career thus far is as erratic as any working filmmaker in Hollywood today – his first three features, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs were received to considerable acclaim, whilst his most recent pictures, The Village and The Lady in the Water, received less than stellar responses. As Shyamalan’s latest film hits screens, The Happening, which dictates a world in crisis following a global natural disaster, he strives to break the unfortunate rut he seems to have run himself into.
The Happening certainly begins promisingly, as a suicide epidemic begins sweeping northeast America, with droves of humans hurtling themselves from the roofs of buildings, and shooting themselves in the streets. Unfortunately, from the outset, the acting and script are an utter mess, and are responsible for numerous moments of unintentional hilarity throughout, as opposed to genuine terror. Mark Wahlberg has faced scathing criticism for his performance, but it is more Shyamalan’s script that fails the actors than anything. Wahlberg is strong-armed into delivering dire lines from start to finish, and is accompanied by a plethora of actors who evidently must be in the film only to complete the final payment on their new house, most of all the horrendously miscast John Leguizamo as a Maths teacher.
The film is at its best for the brief moments in which it leaves the audience (as well as the film’s subjects) in a confused frenzy. As the stunned observers attempt to gather their marbles, it is theorised that the suicide en masse is the cause of a terrorist gas attack, whilst news networks attempt to provide scientific explanations for the atrocity occurring. The accompanying slew of violent suicides aids in ratcheting the tension up, although Shyamalan rarely capitalises upon the film’s “R” rating enough to exclaim this tension.
The cut-and-dry explanation for what is happening is revealed a mere 20 minutes into the film, although you would be forgiven for missing it, given that it is followed by a wealth of dialogue-driven scenes which range from idiosyncratic to simply inane. From a man discussing the merit of hot dogs (claiming “hot dogs get a bad rap”), to Leguizamo’s character asking a panicked woman maths questions to calm her down, Shyamalan has evidently lost whatever knack he had for compelling, or even tolerable dialogue.
Shyamalan’s film even fails in depicting realistic human behaviour - his characters frequently leave their cars despite the fact that it is both unnecessary and potentially fatal (given the air-borne nature of the infection, combined with curious prevailing winds all over the northeast). Throw in a strange love story with so many angles that you never know quite what’s going on, and you have a laundry list of just a few of the film’s irredeemable missteps.
If you’re still not dissuaded from seeing The Happening, the deal-breaker is inevitably the laughably preposterous scene in which the protagonists attempt to outrun a large torrent of wind, a scene as horribly misguided as the escape from the killer ice in The Day After Tomorrow (a marginally better film, one hastens to add).
It can invariably be argued that Shyamalan has simply given up, or rather, he just wanted to have fun with the film, because there are at least two scenes of intentional (albeit cringe-worthy) comedy, namely one instance in which Wahlberg’s character speaks to a plant, which he discovers to be plastic, and continues to talk to. This is one of the few unqualified treats of the film, but The Happening is too smothered in pseudo-sexual tension and idiotic character choices to even lend the film a tangible campy quality.
The film’s final act is, in typical Shyamalan fashion, a tonal shift and a real curiosity. Shyamalan manages to justify his R rating in one instance, yet quickly throws us into the arms of a character who serves as little more than an eye-rollingly lazy metaphor for mother nature, sternly declaring “don’t touch what isn’t yours!”, among other choice sound bytes.
The climax has the potential to pull things together (as The Sixth Sense certainly did), yet when the film’s only viable antagonist is a large wall of air (as well as another 30-second danger which appears and acts as though plucked from a sub-standard computer game), there is little possible to salvage.
Try as Shyamalan might to deliver an uplifting, yet dichotomously sombre ending, his failure to develop his characters beyond the film’s litany of clichés results in a close that is muddled and saccharine in its flagrant idealism. The Happening may be regarded by some as a guilty pleasure, and whilst it is not without its head-scratching charms, it is a pleasure guilty enough to indict.
Thanks for reading,
Reefer