2008 Woodie Awards
Long-awaited thriller not so 'happening'
Krystel Pakitsos
Issue date: 6/26/08 Section: After Hours
Imagine that the world has become plagued with an unknown airborne illness that's wiping out mankind in a matter of hours. Scared? Not as scared as I am of M. Night Shyamalan creating another movie disaster like this one. Shyamalan made his first "R" rated movie debut last weekend with the release of the dramatic sci-fi thriller, "The Happening," which left me wondering, What just happened?
The film begins in a park with two young women having a conversation when one of them takes a hair rod out of her head and inserts it into her neck. After a shot of the gaping neck wound, the camera pans to the rest of the park where you see a zombie-like response from the remaining population, followed by their own self-mutilation.
The audience is then taken into a classroom where Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is teaching science to high school students. Moore is another one of Shyamalan's nervous heroes, similar to Mel Gibson in "Signs," Joaquin Phoenix in "The Village," or Paul Giamatti in "Lady in the Water." Elliot's wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel), also plays an odd, jumpy heroine whose love for her husband is continuously questioned throughout the film. The rest of the movie has the main characters attempting to dodge the epidemic by figuring out the cause, which ultimately deals with Mother Nature's dark side.
I don't know if I was more disappointed by the poor acting, limited plot, overabundance of comic relief or the unexpected twist I was waiting for that never came. With a big-name cast, I expected to see big-name performances. What I saw instead was a group of actors that seemed confused about what kind of role they were playing. It seemed as if they didn't know whether to act scared or comical, which resulted in a lot of perplexed expressions and performances.
Although I was impressed with Shyamalan's creativity found in the self-mutilation scenes, I was let down by the lack of explanation of why something like this would happen.
The idea for the movie was decent because natural disasters are something very real and tangible, and all the scarier for it. However, this attempt to exploit a good idea was botched, and awaits a more capable director to do a "better-than-the-original" remake. Or not.
I can't help but wonder if Shyamalan will ever regain the clout he acquired with movies like "The Sixth Sense" or if he's going to continue to torture movie-goers with fatuous attempts like this.
The film begins in a park with two young women having a conversation when one of them takes a hair rod out of her head and inserts it into her neck. After a shot of the gaping neck wound, the camera pans to the rest of the park where you see a zombie-like response from the remaining population, followed by their own self-mutilation.
The audience is then taken into a classroom where Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is teaching science to high school students. Moore is another one of Shyamalan's nervous heroes, similar to Mel Gibson in "Signs," Joaquin Phoenix in "The Village," or Paul Giamatti in "Lady in the Water." Elliot's wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel), also plays an odd, jumpy heroine whose love for her husband is continuously questioned throughout the film. The rest of the movie has the main characters attempting to dodge the epidemic by figuring out the cause, which ultimately deals with Mother Nature's dark side.
I don't know if I was more disappointed by the poor acting, limited plot, overabundance of comic relief or the unexpected twist I was waiting for that never came. With a big-name cast, I expected to see big-name performances. What I saw instead was a group of actors that seemed confused about what kind of role they were playing. It seemed as if they didn't know whether to act scared or comical, which resulted in a lot of perplexed expressions and performances.
Although I was impressed with Shyamalan's creativity found in the self-mutilation scenes, I was let down by the lack of explanation of why something like this would happen.
The idea for the movie was decent because natural disasters are something very real and tangible, and all the scarier for it. However, this attempt to exploit a good idea was botched, and awaits a more capable director to do a "better-than-the-original" remake. Or not.
I can't help but wonder if Shyamalan will ever regain the clout he acquired with movies like "The Sixth Sense" or if he's going to continue to torture movie-goers with fatuous attempts like this.
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