The Happening

[Arbitrary]

First of all, the acting in this film is just god awful. The writing and dialogue are also just awful. Awful. All the exposition comes from a hick farmer. Any symbolism is so blunt I don't think it gets to count as symbolism.

Remember in The Day After Tomorrow where the main characters run from the cold as if the cold was an entity? Remember how dumb that was? Not too dumb to steal.

Remember in War of the Worlds where a larger story was suddenly stuffed into a shack with a crazy Tim Robbins? Remember how retarded that was? Not too retarded to steal.

It is MST3K worthy. If I had seen it with friends we would have likely gotten ejected for heckling.

[Runnen]

Okay while I agree with some of the comments above, I don't think they are being very helpful to the people looking to this thread for advice on wether to go see this movie or not, so here's to hoping that my little review helps a bit.

We went to see it as a group of ten, and about 3 people out of 10 said it was "ok" while the rest said it was quite bad overall.

I agree that the acting is quite odd. Some scenes are really quite well-acted (particularly John Leguizamo's character, and some scenes with Mark Whalberg), but in general the acting is just so blunt and shoved right in your face to make the point that it breaks the otherwise good, oppressive atmosphere of the movie. Also, the chick in the movie with the OMG blue eyes should have her scenes of "close-up on tearful eyes for 5 seconds" at the very least halved, if not quartered.

Be "warned" that this is probably M. Night's most gory movie. It's not a zombie flick either, but some scenes are actually quite bloody and you see it all in details, so it's probably not for everyone. I'd say the violence / blood was as realistic as "A History of Violence".

I thought the premise was promising, and I'm not sure how it could have been handled better. If some people here are worried that there will be absolutely zero explainations in the movie about "The Happening", well there are several, but it will depend on you whether you want to buy it or not and whether you'll like it or not. There is definately a message in the movie, and at times it's a bit too painfully obvious that the director sacrificed some credibility to point it out some more to the audience.

It's definately not as good as The Sixth Sense, but then the formula is a bit dated by now so everyone expects a twist and it works less and less each time, but I'd still say it was an interesting experience. Of course, the fact we paid only a third of the ticket price may be part of that too.

[Burkex]

Two words:
EPIC FAIL

Okay I just saw this movie. First off I LOVED the 6th sense and Unbreakable. I enjoyed the village, lady in the water, and signs, they were not great but they were entertaining. So I decided to see this. Now let me tell you something THIS MOVIE SUCKED SO BADLY!!!! I was expecting it to be like The Village or Signs and have some decent plot, maybe a lame twist, and some Hitchcock type of suspense, but it was just flat with bad acting.

It was so bad that people were laughing out loud at how bad some parts actually were.

Also, Mark Walberg who I am a fan of was TERRIBLE in this movie. Did he forget how to act? I have seen coked out whores in pronos act better than he did in this movie. Seriously I wouldn't be shocked if this ruined his career, and he just came off The Departed which he was nominated for best supporting actor in the Academy Awards.

The whole plot and story to this movie WAS HORRIBLE too. If you thought the water ending in Signs, with the water and baseball bat, was bad just see this movie.


DO NOT PAY TO GO SEE THIS MOVIE. DO NOT RENT THE DVD.

There was a lot of gory scenes to make it R rated but nothing really special unless you include the hilarious Iphone part which was gory but FUNNY AS HELL, imo the best scene was with an old lady:

The one real good scary scene should have actually been the entire movie. There was basically a scary old lady living in the middle of no where with no electricity or anything. That part was pretty interesting espcially with the doll in her bed and how she would have crazy flashes, like slapping the little girl. There is even a scene that makes you jump, the only one in the movie. I think the movie should have started with a couple that gets a flat tire or something in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night and in doing so they encounter this woman and their stay with her is 99% of the movie. That old chick was seriously the most interesting part of the movie she was fucking creepy.

I think M Night Shamalan might be done for awhile if not forever. He struck gold once with The Sixth Sense and was basically a 1 hit wonder. Ari Gold should dump him as a client. I think nobody will go see his next movie unless it is up there with the 6th Sense because of the dog crap of the movie that this was. Shamalan seems to be a good filmmaker but his stories just blow. He is good with suspense, I suggest that he lets screenwrighters write his scripts and he just sticks to directing.


One last thing: Why does Shamalan always have married people in his movies where their marrage is on the rocks...Like in the 6th sense, signs, The happening, unbreakable, and the village?



The other 1 good thing was I saw a really cool looking preview for the first time before that piece of crap movie called Traitor staring Don Cheadle (who is PURE WIN in my book):

[Burkex]

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

Shawshank redemption has one of the best surprise endings? It is a movie about an innocent man whose imprisoned. Of course hes gonna escape.

Just saw this comment today because I was avoiding this thread for spoilers, which is funny cause the movie blew so badly, I kinda wish someone spoiled it for me now.

Anyways at the end of Shawshank they set it up that Andy is going to kill himself because he is trapped in jail forever, the warden has him by the balls and Tommy just got shot because he could testify that Andy is innocent. With Tommy dead Andy is stuck in jail forever. He is starting to act "funny" and he gives Red a very sad and gloomy goodbye speach. Then he gets 10 feet of rope from Haywood. Naturally you think he is going to hang himself, just like Brooks did earlier. That is how it was set up. Get busy living and get busy dieing, right? Red even thinks Andy is going to kill himself. He even tells the other inmates he thinks so. That night Red is inside his cell sweating it out and he can't sleep a wink. Then in the morning Andy does not leave his cell for morning role call and the screw goes into the cell and swears. Right then you think he sees Andy hanging lifeless in his cell and you see the sad look on Red's face. It isn't until the warden throws the rock through the poster that you say to yourself HOLY SHIT.

Now if you heard about it being an escape movie before you saw this movie then it was no surprise to you. But I saw it Thursday night -1 day before opening day because I worked in a movie theater in High School and I knew nothing about the movie. The movie blew my mind away and that escape was a HUGE surprise if you knew nothing about the movie. They set it up perfectly to make you think he was killing himself just like The Sixth Sense did by setting it up perfectly to make you think Bruce Willis was alive. So yea I think Shawshank had an amazing twist. Not once in the movie before Andy broke out do they ever give one hint that he was trying to escape. Notice how after he broke out they go back and show you how he did it just like how the go back and show how Bruce Willis is dead in The Sixth Sense.

For the people that didn't see this movie as a surprise ending, I am sorry to say that you had the movie spoiled for you and you knew before you saw the movie that it was a prison escape movie. That sucks and I am sorry for you, trust me the movie was 1000x better if you knew absolutely nothing about it before you saw it. There is no way that because he was an innocent man that you knew right away that he was going to escape. BULLSHIT!



PS: lol at Marky Mark being in the Big Lebowski. STFU DONNY!

[Desidero]

I just got back from seeing this movie. As everyone has said, it was without a doubt the worst film of the decade; possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. Yes, I saw Gigli.

The acting was horrific. Whalberg managed to put absolutely no emotion into every single line in the film. He also spoke in a weird higher-pitched and softer voice than all of his other movies, which was weird. Deschanel looked retarded in the first scene. If you see her in the first scene, that is the stupid fucking face she makes for the *entire* movie.

Now it wouldn't be fair to put all the blame on the actors/director for this piece of shit. The writing was just embarrassingly bad. Pretty much everything that happened made no sense at all. I don't know how else to put it. It was simply indescribable.

That being said, if you and a bunch of your buddies are in the mood for a fucking hilarious movie and you've already seen The Hulk, get wasted and go see this (we were sober, but it'd probably be even funnier when buzzed - nobody in the audience will care when you laugh or make jokes either). You will laugh your asses off at this movie. Everyone in the theater was cracking up when various people died. Every stupid line solicited laughter and jokes. It's a shame the film wasn't supposed to be a comedy.

*edit*Yeah, the old lady was pretty awesome. We laughed when she smacked the girl's hand. The rest of the movie made us giddy so we couldn't appreciate her character.

[Erumaron]

It was an alright story...funny watching each of Night's films get worse though.

If you didn't see Andy escaping in Shawshank Redemption you fail at seeing foreshadowing. What do you think the figurine making was all about?

[PigBenis]

BAD DO NOT WANT!

[Malakriss]

The short preview clip after the BSG Mid-Season Finale was hilarious, he's almost (almost!) as clueless as Uwe Boll

[McCheese]

I enjoyed this movie. It's not great, but it's certainly not as awful as people are making it out to be. I consider it as good (or as bad?) as Lady in the Water and The Village.

I wouldn't see it again, but I don't regret paying for my ticket.

[Burkex]

I think the acting in the movie was worse than the movie itself if that is even possible. I think an alien clone with no emotion played Mark Walhberg's character and his wife was just as bad.

[Alyssarie]

Originally Posted by Burkex

I think the acting in the movie was worse than the movie itself if that is even possible. I think an alien clone with no emotion played Mark Walhberg's character and his wife was just as bad.

I agree,acting was'nt very good. I went into this not expecting the acting to be very good based on the trailers.

My other problem was the story and how it played out,it was too short. When the end was coming I said to myself "this cant be the end" but it was.

I get M.Night is a story teller but I was still expecting a little bit more. It was like several different people wrote the script without any of them having a clue as to who wrote what previously.

[Greezer]

Originally Posted by Desidero

Now it wouldn't be fair to put all the blame on the actors/director for this piece of shit. The writing was just embarrassingly bad. Pretty much everything that happened made no sense at all. I don't know how else to put it. It was simply indescribable.

I believe Shyamalan also wrote the screenplay, so yeah, I guess you can still blame the director.

[Soygen]

Originally Posted by Greezer

I believe Shyamalan also wrote the screenplay, so yeah, I guess you can still blame the director.

Yup. He is the sole writer.

While I haven't seen this, nor Lady in the Water, I have heard enough to know I probably don't want to. When someone is writing, directing and producing something, there isn't enough checks where someone can intervene and say, "Hey, this is a shitty idea. Let's do this and/or that to improve it".

[Akileese]

ok guys..WORSE than Cloverfield here? I need to know this.

[Burkex]

Originally Posted by Akileese

ok guys..WORSE than Cloverfield here? I need to know this.

Is cloverfield bad? I have that on my Netflix que please tell me so I can take it off.

And this will win worst movie of the year. It will be up there with Joe Dirt, Gigli and all the other stinkers in past years.

Also I read that Lady in The Water only made $42 million dollars and ended up losing money so nobody would back M Night on this movie and so he financed it out of his own pocket. He might not be making movies anytime soon if this movie does poorly and judging by the reviews I bet it does horribly. No studio will back him anymore. He had the green light after The 6th Sense but after these last 2 movies the poor guy might be all done, which is sad because he has talent as a filmmaker, just not as a writer (Except for the 6th Sense and Unbreakable)