The Happening... not as bad as you're told. [no spoilers]

ohhaythar

The movie “The Happening” was recently panned by critics, which naturally meant… I had to see it. I went in thinking I was going to see a deplorable movie with bad acting and a bad storyline. I came out wondering how it got the reviews it did. The movie was not bad at all. I’ll admit that it was not Shyamalan's best, but I don’t believe it deserves any of the horrid reviews that it is getting. I think Shyamalan has been compared to Sixth Sense with every movie he has made. Just because everything else he has done has not surpassed his first work doesn't mean I can't enjoy his new ones. What was everyone else’s thoughts about the movie?

Gorilla Salad

Now, from what I saw, which was just a clip on Late Night with Conan, the movie fucking sucks. Bad acting, stupid plot, that kind of stuff. From what I've heard, I was right. My thought is to see it when it comes to HBO.

Tomanta

I went to see it because my dad wanted to.

Yes, yes it was as bad as you were told. It was an atrocity.

Look, a basic rule of writing for film is "show, don't tell". This film was basically (very, very minor spoilers):

Waiting for something to happen.
Telling us what is happening/what people are feeling (or, more specifically, "I don't show my emotions." That line of dialog is spoken twice, with a "she whispers when she is scared" sandwiched in between).
Seeing people kill themselves.

The sad thing is the concept was solid, the execution was just poor on all fronts. The script was horrible, the acting did not come close to making up for the script, the directing was far from M. Night's best, and the 'twist':

(Major spoilers)

Plants firing a warning shot at mankind? Really, M. Night? Is that the best you can do? You don't even wait until the end to twist it for us, you tell us not even halfway through.

Also: Why introduce your main character as a scientist, make sure you tell people what the scientific method is, then not even really use that? Oh, there was the "should we go save them?" scene where the scientific method doesn't really apply, but that's it.

Rabid_Llama

Could someone post a summary of the plot? I really don't want to see it but I want to know what happens.

DarkPrimus

Look, all I know about this film is that there is very 'tense' scene where

People flee from the wind and when they split up into separate groups the wind visibly shifts on the grass so you can see that it chases both groups of people. All this while "scary chase music" is playing.

I was told this by someone who saw the film.

Toxin01

Rabid_Llama wrote: »

Could someone post a summary of the plot? I really don't want to see it but I want to know what happens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_%282008_film%29

Rabid_Llama

Oh my god. That sounds awful. I hope they explain the wacky bits so they don't sound so goddamn stupid in the movie.

Tomanta

Rabid_Llama wrote: »

Could someone post a summary of the plot? I really don't want to see it but I want to know what happens.

Here you go:

A plot summary follows, last chance!

Plants get pissed at people in the northeast and release a neurotoxin that causes people to get disoriented, then kill themselves. This toxin increasingly infects smaller and smaller groups of people, then about a day after it begins suddenly stops. Mark Wahlberg, along with his "distant" wife and the daughter of one of his friends run from the wind for most of the film, then at the end Wahlberg and his wife decide they love each other after all.

moniker

Tomanta wrote: »

Rabid_Llama wrote: »

Could someone post a summary of the plot? I really don't want to see it but I want to know what happens.

Here you go:

A plot summary follows, last chance!

Plants get pissed at people in the northeast and release a neurotoxin that causes people to get disoriented, then kill themselves. This toxin increasingly infects smaller and smaller groups of people, then about a day after it begins suddenly stops. Mark Wahlberg, along with his "distant" wife and the daughter of one of his friends run from the wind for most of the film, then at the end Wahlberg and his wife decide they love each other after all.

What a twist!

Gorilla Salad

Man, I am hearing so much different shit. Half the people say that theres a twist, and others are telling me that the twist is that their isn't a twist. I'm fucking confused.

also, fuck roger Ebert.

Wetsun

The twist is that in The Happening, nothing is ever actually happening. Other than wind. There is some wind.

This movie was fucking awful, and I came in with very low expectations. In fact, it is likely the second worst movie I've ever seen, right behind Cabin Fever. The acting and dialog was pretty much unbearable. A number of people were laughing at the absurdity of the "serious" parts. When it ended, everyone in the theater just looked so damned confused and depressed about what they had just paid for.

This is a plot spoiler, but it doesn't matter, because there's not really a plot:

By the end, I was hoping the crazy old lady was actually a human-form plant monster, just so that something...anything...would happen. But then she just died before doing anything useful.

Fuck, this movie hurt my head. And I didn't even pay for my ticket.

Also, regarding "twists":

There is no twist. About 20 minutes into the movie we find out what is happening. This is reinforced throughout the entire movie, and near the end, it is confirmed to be what is happening. That's not a twist, that's just a (boring) story.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Evil Multifarious

like i said earlier in the chat thread

this is basically Shyamalan unintentionally parodying himself and emptying the suspense genre of any content, leaving only form. it'd be very postmodern of him if he wasn't a jackass.

SkutSkut

So it's like Suicide Club, but more retarded? I thought it would be.

durandal4532

Yeah... it was not very good. It's a sort of creepy premise followed by extremely low budget semi-scares.

Also it relies on the stupid Yell + LOUD = Scary formula way more often than this sort of movie should.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

SkutSkut

Suicide Club had the best opening ever, 30 school girls getting mowed down by a train. It seems The Happening doesn't have that though?

YodaTuna

I'm glad I read spoilers of this movie before my girlfriend convinced me to go. I knew the entire plot of the village before we went to that and I declared she would hate it and she did, because that movie sucked.

I finally made her break down and ask me what the story was and she thought it was terrible, now I don't have to go!

Variable

I have yet to see someone get into any specific reason that they liked this.

except someone I know who said "it had interesting directing, good acting and good subplots. it was really unique".

to which I could find no suitable response.

Tam

Hey guys, I saw the movie. It was really really bad.

You know what is awesome? This man will be making the Avatar movie.

So as not to derail the thread, I liked Sixth Sense and Unbreakable and I was just barely there on the latter. I think he's definitely gone downhill. The ending of The Village is ridiculously stupid.

chamberlain

SkutSkut wrote: »

Suicide Club had the best opening ever, 30 school girls getting mowed down by a train. It seems The Happening doesn't have that though?

You bastard, I had to look up what Suicide Club was about. Just reading about it was disturbing.

MalaysianShrew

The scariest part of the movie was at the end when...

she is waiting and then gets up and looks at the pregnancy test and it has TWO LINES! PREGNANT!

Both me and my girlfriend were terrified by this scene. It turns out I was supposed to feel happy for her when I saw it?

durandal4532

Variable wrote: »

I have yet to see someone get into any specific reason that they liked this.

except someone I know who said "it had interesting directing, good acting and good subplots. it was really unique".

to which I could find no suitable response.

The directing involved several long shots of trees blowing in the wind accompanied by scary music. The sub-plots were predictable, the internal logic was non-existent, the acting was for the most part wooden and dependent on "quirks" instead of character.

It was "unique" in that it "uniquely" ran a premise into the ground.

Seriously though, the windy fucking drafty fucking lots of ways for air to get in house and the even less stable shack kept them safe? And then the second they got out oh hey it's cool now?

And I mean, why not use the completely off the grid misanthrope to make... any point at all? Should nature be treating her differently? Is she supposed to tell us something? No no, she's here to scream and be loud because loud is scary.

Zoel

I felt like I was watching real (career) suicide.

The cinematography and score are top notch which makes the high school one-act grade acting, 700 club style moralizing, comical deaths, and shallow character motivations ripped from days of our lives one of the largest failure in film ever marketed on this scale.

Variable

yeah it was pathetic.

Omeks

chamberlain wrote: »

SkutSkut wrote: »

Suicide Club had the best opening ever, 30 school girls getting mowed down by a train. It seems The Happening doesn't have that though?

You bastard, I had to look up what Suicide Club was about. Just reading about it was disturbing.

Ditto. That movie sounds completely batshit insane. Gives me the jibblies.

I read The Happening's plot summary, and it sounds. Completely. Terrible. The commercials seem to try to sell the movie based on people getting chewed up by lawnmowers and running into trees to death, but it doesn't mention the absolutely ridiculous 'villain.'

It's Mother Nature! She's come back to fuck us all up for ignoring Al Gore!

Yar

I'm sorry, but M. Night was the screenwriter's version of a one-hit wonder. The Sixth Sense was amazing. Every movie since has been abominable.

Variable

Yar wrote: »

I'm sorry, but M. Night was the screenwriter's version of a one-hit wonder. The Sixth Sense was amazing. Every movie since has been abominable.

I agree 100%.

Zoel

It almost makes you question whether he even wrote the sixth sense, since you would think the writer of that movie would be wiser than to spill all his beans in the first twenty minutes of a film.

Evil Multifarious

Zoel wrote: »

It almost makes you question whether he even wrote the sixth sense, since you would think the writer of that movie would be wiser than to spill all his beans in the first twenty minutes of a film.

think bigger

he is a filmmaker who spilled all his beans in the first movie, and now he has no beans to make any other movies. there are no beans. none.

Zoel

He is like a cafe that serves only soda and creme?

Bionic Monkey

I'm sorry, but could somebody please fix the damn "your" in the title? It's been bugging me every time I see it.

ohhaythar

Bionic Monkey wrote: »

I'm sorry, but could somebody please fix the damn "your" in the title? It's been bugging me every time I see it.

im sorry. i didn't see that at the time. i try to be careful on forums, but i screwed up there.

TehSpectre

ohhaythar wrote: »

Bionic Monkey wrote: »

I'm sorry, but could somebody please fix the damn "your" in the title? It's been bugging me every time I see it.

im sorry. i didn't see that at the time. i try to be careful on forums, but i screwed up there.

You...you can fix it.

Also, Unbreakable was a great movie.

ohhaythar

TehSpectre wrote: »

ohhaythar wrote: »

Bionic Monkey wrote: »

I'm sorry, but could somebody please fix the damn "your" in the title? It's been bugging me every time I see it.

im sorry. i didn't see that at the time. i try to be careful on forums, but i screwed up there.

You...you can fix it.

Also, Unbreakable was a great movie.

done

Rami

I read someone describe this film as 'Like Hitchcock's 'Birds', but...without any birds'.

I'll look forward to it being shown on TV in a year or so.

YodaTuna

TehSpectre wrote: »

ohhaythar wrote: »

Bionic Monkey wrote: »

I'm sorry, but could somebody please fix the damn "your" in the title? It's been bugging me every time I see it.

im sorry. i didn't see that at the time. i try to be careful on forums, but i screwed up there.

You...you can fix it.

Also, Unbreakable was a great movie.

That is a horrible lie and you should feel bad for perpetuating it. You might cause some unsuspecting innocent to watch that movie. Their blood would be on your hands.

TehSpectre

Unbreakable is one of the best superhero movies around.

Dublo7

The Science Behind The Happening Is Jesus?

The Happening director M. Night Shyamalan sat down with the press to talk about the science behind his latest flick — and the science is a weird mixture of Jesus and algae at the bottom of the sea. Night was inspired by reading Albert Einstein's biography and discovering Einstein had rejected religion at first, until eventually he saw "the hand of God" in the gaps between scientific explanations. In The Happening, Shyamalan tries to recreate this surrender to faith by saying, sometimes you just can't explain it when shit happens. Click through to discover the deeper religious message of The Happening — and to find out where that algae comes into it. (With spoilers.)

In The Happening, people start killing themselves for no reason, and according to early reports it turns out that the plants are secreting a neurotoxin that makes people crazily suicidal. Shyamalan said he got the idea from reading about undersea algae that can secrete a toxin to protect itself.

But asked what specific religious faith inspired The Happening, Shyamalan went super vague. He said he drew on "the Native American culture and relationship with nature, the relationship with the sky, the earth, the rock the bear." He also claimed that cast he Mark Wahlberg because of his strong faith in Jesus. But Wahlberg's religious faith ended up causing a ton of reshoots. Whenever Shyamalan would ask Wahlberg what he was thinking about, and Wahlberg replied, "Jesus," Shyamalan would make him reshoot the scene in question. (Until he was no longer thinking about Jesus?)

Added Shyamalan, "There are limits to rational thought." Which is actually the only sentence I feel clearly explained his faith message. But maybe I'm just an overly rational person waiting for God to be explained — or rather not explained — to me because, as Shyamalan says,
It's not cynical, but clinical minds are the ones that it needs to be proved to the most. The ability to believe is right there. It actually means more to them, it's such an important moment. We all want one day someone to go, "Here's the answer. There is something bigger going on."
http://io9.com/5014777/the-science-behind-the-happening-is-jesus

:?

Tastyfish

Bionic Monkey wrote: »

I'm sorry, but could somebody please fix the damn "not" in the title? It's been bugging me every time I see it.

Pagebreak

I feel like M. Night can do atmosphere pretty well, he's just terrible when it comes to plot.