What a big piece of crap. 90 minutes pure boredom and there's really not much happening. There were a few scenes that worked but not enough to save this trainwreck.

D

enjoyed parts, disliked other parts. Marky Mark and Zooey didnt give very good performances

B/B-

After a little more thinking I'll lower my grade to D-.

01. The Village - A
02. Unbreakable - A-/B+
03. The Sixth Sense - B+
04. Signs - B+
05. Lady in the Water - D+
06. The Happening - D-

It couLd have been worse. It started too fast and there was no buiLt-up in the beggining, at aLL. Most of the "suicide/suspense" scenes were poorLy executed and ridicuLous as mentioned except for the Sixth Sense-esque scene with the trees beside the road. Thompsoncory pretty much sums up my thoughts.

C+

The movie was horrible. Mark Wahlberg is one of my favorite actors, which is one of the reasons I went to see this. The other reason was because I love the Sixth Sense. Other than that and The Happening, I've never actually seen another M. Night movie, and I hear I'm really not missing all that much.

What bothered me most, though, was the acting. Honestly, what the hell? What was with Mark Wahlberg's voice, first of all? The scene where he's talking to Jess in the diner, telling her about the mood rings. He talks in a voice most adults use to talk to kids -- a dumbed down sound, pronouncing every syllable slowly and deliberately. It worked in that one scene. Why he talked like that for the WHOLE ENTIRE MOVIE, however, was beyond me. It was really frustrating me to no end. Zooey.. well, I don't really expect much from her. I actually really like the girl, and think she is absolutely GORGEOUS, but her acting has never done anything for me. She has that monotone voice and never is able to show any expression. The only movie I didn't mind her in was Failure to Launch, and only because her character was supposed to be weird and quirky. Her lack of acting skills has annoyed me in everything else I've seen her in.

I didn't care that there was no "twist," I mostly cared that there was no plot. The movie starts promisingly enough, but then it just drags on. The wind blows. People die. People throw themselves into trees, infront of lawn mowers, give their limbs to the lions. The wind blows some more. Mark Wahlberg's group continually runs into weirder and weirder people. Then, magically, the wind blows and the event is over, sparing the lives of Mark, Zooey, and the little girl. The whole plant thing was never adequately explored for me, and the ending was just terrible.

I dragged two friends to see this, just because of my intense liking of Mark Wahlberg, and they both proclaimed that it wasn't worth a dollar, and that I owed them their $11 back.

D

He was supposed to come off as a very peaceful person (at least that's what I think based on the conversation abut the mood ring at the end). So they probably thought if he talked like a wuss he'd look like a very peaceful person.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen.
F
More later.

B+

much better film than Lady & Village.

M.Nights a tree-hugger.

Funniest film of '08.

"I see you eyein' my lemon drink."

I might be seeing this Wednesday night.

Based on everything I've heard, I am actually hopeful that this is another Wicker Man. Because that was the funniest damn movie I've ever seen.

This reminds me of Wicker Man, but like loyal said, it has an interesting premise. And it's not nearly as funny (though the old lady, the hot dog guy, and just about everyone's performance are all hilarious), I guess.

Terrible acting and unintentionally hilarious moments aside, the biggest problem is that, while there's no lame twist in this one, there's no conclusion to it either. It just...ends. Hardly anything is explained. Everything in the film simply just...happens, and that's it. At least it's reasonably creepy, which makes up for its shortcomings, and it kept me intrigued throughout (something LITW did not do).

This isn't terrible. It just isn't that good.

*½

LOL, no, I really loved Wahlberg's hott pharmacist bit... the whole superfluous bottle of cough syrup... that's six bucks right there thing. I was LOLing. And for some reason, I died when he was talking to his best friend, and yelling at him for mentioning something to Alma, and he says "Duh!" I just can't ever picture hearing those words come out of Mark Wahlberg's mouth.

The movie is a bit funny, but it's not as funny as Wicker Man. I wouldn't show this to friend's as a so bad it's funny movie though.

Minor Shyamalan, but still worth seeing on the big screen (compared to the crap we all receive on a weekly basis, including other disaster flicks of the past..).

Since I went in expecting terrible, it made it less painful then it otherwise would have been.

Man, it was so bad. I loved every M. Night movie except LiTW (and even that wasn't horrible). But man of man...

Finally got to see this tonight, on the last night of it's first week...

I have avoided reading everything about it, except for Shack's spoiler in the Cinemania forum, but got the sense that critic's pretty much hated The Happening. Well all's I can say is that M. Night musta pissed off the corporate media, because their ongoing negative reviews in no way reflect the quality of his films. This is yet another well told tale from one of the consummate storytellers of our day. Each of Shyamalan's films reminds me of an episode of The Twilight Zone - - it's like getting to watch that classic series in slow motion (one episode a year), but with no boring ones.

The Happening was so well shot from beginning to end - - just that cinematography was scarier than any of the so-called horror movies I've seen in recent times. The first three minutes of The Happening was thirty times more frightening than all of The Strangers. The acting was solid and believable throughout and the score was effectively creep inducing.

It's kinda like The Mist but with a more thought-out animus behind the doom. It's one o' them thinkin' man's horror movies. No wonder it's droppin' like a stone at the BO - - 90% of the population allow themselves to be ruled by emotion. Envisioning the consequences of our actions seems to be a skill available to an even smaller percentage of our species.

So if M. Night wants to write an obscurely thoughtful Twilight Zone episode once a year from now till doomsday - - I'm all for it!!!

18 out of 5.

Just caught up on the thread after seeing the movie tonight, and this is just about the only sensible comment I could find!

Just when Bradford almost gets me on his side...BAM...every time...like clockwork.

This might be a time worth taking me off your ignore list. . .

Hehe, me too. Easily the best scene in the whole movie.

It was a very lame explanation if you ask me. The trees?!... seriously?. It was very disappointing, i was expecting something... cooler. And the acting was hideous. At least it was interesting up until the "twist".

C-

the happening

I really enjoyed this movie even though I didn't like the Village and kind of though LITW was good so I originally didn't even want to watch this movie, but decided to give a try today. I like how it just jumps right into the "action". There's no setup no nothing. We're just thrust into the film like Cloverfield and 28 days. I think this movie reminded me a lot of 28 days sequel in terms of the end too. Anyway, I thought the film was good and the acting was good overally even though Wahlberg's delivery is very wussified here. Leguizamo has some crooked teeth and his character was a bit off. Zoey was pretty good and a beauty to look at. I didn't mind the dialogue that took place. It didn't make me roll my eyes or anything. As for the Happening itself, even the conclusion that's being spouted at the end is just a guess as to what it was, but I enjoyed that there's no real conclusion to this movie. It just goes on. Life just go on after the mass tragedy that happened earlier.

Grade - B

*twist? There's no twist to this...*

So this is probably the most unfairly hated movie since, well, Lady in the Water.

I'm not really sure why the majority of critics have it out for Shyamalan, or why they feel compelled to shallowly rate his films without taking the time to read into its message or delve into its depths. I mean, it took my family all of fifteen minutes to discuss and examine and, ultimately, understand the film, and none of us do this for a living. Perhaps they just hate his techniques, perhaps they dislike his (admittedly large) ego, or perhaps they just don't get him. Really, I guess it doesn't matter. Audiences and critics alike have both taken a hating to him recently, and they're both wrong.

I guess I could see how one could hate this film, though. The acting is stark and obvious and, well, "bad", but it's entirely deliberate. The dialogue is banal and silly, but, again, completely intentional. This is not a Wicker Man scenario where the film is so bad it's hilarious. The film purposefully plays with disaster film archetypes and goes against what a film is 'supposed' to be like in order to make its point, and it does so masterfully. This is not a film for someone expecting a quick little horror. This is not a film for someone not willing to put a little thought into their viewing. This is, as bradley put it, a thinking man's horror - and it's brilliant.

Nearly everyone here has discounted the acting as terrible, and I suppose it could be seen that way, but I found it very measured and deliberate and, in fact, essential to the story. The leads are bland and stunted and (some would say) laughable, but their flat performances contrast perfectly with the grisly, vicious suicides portrayed in between. Furthermore, their almost-childishness serves to explain why they are able to survive the event - their dull, pedestrian conversations and innocent naivety means the plants do not view them as threatening, and thus do not attack them. It may be an overblown way of explaining the mystery, but it seems like most people missed it, anyway. Similarly, the apparent banality of the dialogue is at a vast disparity from the pure, elemental horror that functions as the backdrop, and the tension between these two extremes makes the terror that much more terrifying. The 'terrible' acting and screenplay is not only intentional, it's vital.

Of course, there's a lot more to this film than artful horror and misinterpreted intentions. This could be Shyamalan's most political film yet, with comments ranging from terrorism and global warming to gun culture in middle America. It's not always dealt with subtly (the death of the two kids is especially obvious), but there's a lot of stuff just underneath the surface that all helps to explain what's really going on. First, the increasingly creative ways in which the victims find to kill themselves. The two most vivid examples are, perhaps, the zoo scene and the lawnmower scene. Both are instances of man exerting his control over nature, and the suicides represent that control reverting to destroy us. Also, the very obvious zooms and pans and focuses to show man's slow destruction of nature, from the car reversing and driving over the plants to the dominating power plants in the background. It's not always done very skillfully, but it's still there, nonetheless.

Shyamalan's most appropriate comparison is probably Hitchcock, and so it makes sense that his films would be trashed, just as Hitch's were (for the most part). It also makes sense since this film is a close cousin to The Birds, which also dealt with a similar idea of nature attacking with little (or no) explanation, while a banal story played in the foreground. The Birds is still unappreciated today, despite it being one of Hitch's very best works, and I think it's the same for this film. It's not a perfect movie (it's too short, and its mechanisms could have been a bit more skillful and subtle), but it's a vastly underrated one, and I hope that, in time, its brilliance will be appreciated. Don't believe the anti-hype: go see it yourself.

Um...yeah...I do