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The Happening
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $14.99
Your Save: $ 4.99 ( 25% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley
Directed By: M. Night Shyamalan
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: HAPPENING, THE (DVD MOVIE)
EAN: 0024543532897
Format: AC-3
Label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2008-10-07
Running Time: 90
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
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Editorial Reviews:
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A paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity. Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 10/07/2008 Starring: Mark Wahlberg John Leguizamo Run time: 91 minutes Rating: R
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Could have been better but could have been worse
Comment: The concept of the movie is awesome. It really makes you think. But the movie could have had more potential to be so much better. I watched this in the theater which I think is the best way to see it. If at home, watch in the dark. But you can't beat suspenful. Once again M Night does not disappoint. If you like The Happening, then you will like Signs.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Without value.
Comment: This is really a terrible movie. Makes you wonder why anyone would actually choose to be part of something so bad. Mark Wahlberg has apparently forgotten what acting is, and Zooey Deschanel as his wife seems lost in space or perhaps spaced and lost. Totally without value as even the script is worse than bad. Don't waste any time viewing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Check the $1 bin at your local wal-mart for this one...
Comment: I want to say upfront, I'm not an M. Night Shyamalan basher. The Sixth Sense was great, Unbreakable was pretty cool too, and I even thought the Village was OK. But there is no excuse for this poorly executed disaster of a film. The film's concept itself, that plant life weary of humans polluting the planet cause us to spontaneously commit suicide, isn't such a bad one. But the way the story is told, with zero nuance, subtlety, or credibility, completely derails the plot.
Here are the main problems I see with this film:
- bad writing: The dialog is unintentionally idiotic. For example, John Leguizamo's character relates buying train tickets to "that cabbage patch kid craze." Oh yeah the one that happened like 25 years ago? And we're expected to beleive that Mark Whalberg and Zooey Deschanel bonded over a mood ring, which gets trotted out no less than 3 times in the movie? Why all the stale references? I am old enough to relate to these allusions to pop culture but they distracted me from the plot (maybe that was the point).
- speaking of plot, its trajectory stalls after about 20 minutes. People start offing themselves all over New York, then Boston, then other major North Eastern US cities. People try to escape from said cities. I can get on board with that. But when they start running around rural Pennsylvania when the trains just stop (they can't communicate with ANYONE?!), things get absurd. First we meet the middle-aged hippie couple who own a nursery and inexplicably invite some unknown survivors into their car. Then there is the high-strung military recruit who serves no purpose but to carry a gun with which infectees shoot themselves. Then a boarded up house with gun-toting yokels becomes a convenient way to dispatch the uneeded teenage companions of our heroes. But my favorite is the inexplicably raving lunatic Mrs. Jones played by Betty Buckley. She lives alone, grows her own food, and has a near-lifesize doll in a bed downstairs. After slapping the child in the group, hollering about theft and murder, her suicide via headbanging a few windows seems par for the course. It's also kind of hilarious too.
- no subtlety at all. This is what really irked me about the film. Everything was so explicitly stated and obvious. For example, during her dinnertime ramblings, and apropos of nothing, Mrs. Jones tells the heroes about her spring house which is connected by a pipe to the main house to facilitate communication. Gee I wonder if they'll be using that in the near future? Well of course they do! Then towards the end, after the "happening" abruptly comes to a halt, when a character wonders aloud if this was just a warning from Nature and if this could happen again. Next scene - mon dieu! the trees in Paris attack! What about some nuance? What about leaving some things unsaid (or unfilmed) to let the audience fill in the blanks?
- bad acting. Nobody shines in this clunker. I sort of felt bad for Mark Whalberg. I could picture him going back to his trailer after a day of shooting and just shaking his head in disbelief. He's pretty unconvincing as a gentle-soul science teacher. As for Zooey Deschanel, I honestly thought her character had a mental problem after her first scene. Her delivery and expressions just never seem to fit with what the scene calls for.
But here is what REALLY grinds my gears with this "happening:" people still compare Shyamalan to Alfred Hitchcock! That is just wrong. Hitchcock was a master at telling a story both through dialog and visuals. He built moods and created layers of subtlety that immersed audiences in his unique vision. Whether M. Night Shyamalan did likewise with the Sixth Sense is debatable, but he certainly has NOT done so with The Happening. His statement that this was meant to be a "B movie" to me is a real cop-out. The only thing The Happening has in common with any B movie is the questionable quality.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Held my interest up to a point.
Comment: I would not consider myself a M. Night Shyamalan fan, however I did enjoy 'The Sixth Sense' and to a lesser degree 'Signs' and consider 'Unbreakable' to be his best so far. On first viewing 'The Village' I was lead to believe that I enjoyed it even though the twist was pretty obvious for me, but on second viewing the plot holes stick out a mile and I now have no time for it and feel somewhat ashamed of myself for being sucked in on the the first viewing! I also hold my hands up and confess to enjoying 'Lady In The Water' first because Paul Giamatti gave a very good performance and probably more so because it was M. Night Shyamalan first straight film without the obligatory tired twist that he had come to be know for. Sure it was somewhat childish in the use of the fictional creatures names but I am prepared to over look that as the film as a whole, I find enjoyable for a reason I can't quite convincingly articulate in words.
Now to The 'Happening', I'm not going to rip it apart as some have done as it is not as bad as I have been lead to believe but I'm also not going to praise it to the sky as others have. For me the biggest problem with 'The Happening' is the last 35 minutes. I was completely engaged as a viewer, intrigued with the plot and right there with the characters for the first hour as M. Night Shyamalan slowly revealed the story he wanted to tell. Unfortunately it seems to me that M. Night Shyamalan only had 50 minutes of story to tell and then hit writers block and realized that he had no idea where he was going with the story himself. The third act really has no revelations to give us to explain what has come before.
To the positives as I see them regarding 'The Happening'. The first 50 minutes has the makings of a very good film. The idea that it could be a natural occurrence to me is intriguing and I accept this as reality while watching the film. As others have pointed out, the cinematography and editing are both faultless. M. Night Shyamalan direction is for the most part very good but somewhat hit and miss regarding the main leads. There is a limited musical score throughout which I found refreshing, M. Night Shyamalan tends to use naturally occurring ambient noise to draw the viewer into the story which I always find much more effective than telegraphing every plot point with pounding music. It almost seems a lost art form now to tell a story through the film camera rather than with it as has become almost the norm now in a large percentage of films today with the camera moving every 3 seconds and shaking all over the place. On the acting front, I can not fault the large majority of the actors in their performances. Zooey Deschanel has to do little more than appear on screen for me to find her acceptable! Some of the supporting characters were weird enough to be intriguing and added to the general atmosphere of the film during the first 50 minutes.
To the negatives. Mark Wahlberg from his first line just did not feel right for me. I can't put my finger on what it is that I did not like about his performance but it just felt off. This may have been due to some of the dialogue M. Night Shyamalan provided for the character of Elliot Moore which to me seemed to be the most under written character in the whole film. Elliot Moore provided Mark Wahlberg with zero story arc over the 91 minute running time which makes me wonder if Wahlberg just signed on for the pay cheque thinking someone is going to do it so why not me? Back to the last 35 minutes, after the credits rolled at the end I was left thinking, well what really was the point of me sitting there for 91 minutes watching 'The Happening'. The last 35 minutes almost completely abandoned the nature based airborne attack on humans plot and turned into what felt like a tacked on sappy family relationship drama plot line with happy ending. What also took me right out of the film was the last 5 minutes, we skip forward 3 months and judging by the scenes in these last few minutes in particular, life seems to be completely normal as if nothing so traumatic as people killing themselves in all manner of ways ever happened and also the fact that the little girl seems to have gotten over not only the trauma of seeing first hand so much death but also the death of both her parents in less than 3 months and happily runs off to attend her first day in school.
Is M. Night Shyamalan giving me the opportunity to decide myself if it was in fact a natural occurrence or was it something more sinister. If I am to accept that it was natural, then this raises even more questions regarding the plot such as why does it only effect certain people and why does it affect some people before others. Why did it only occur in a particular area of the US and why then in France next and not somewhere connected to the US such as Canada, Mexico or the entire South American continent, well because it's more dramatic for M. Night Shyamalan to tell us that it has jumped across the Atlantic ocean with no explanation so it must be bigger than just plants right? or is it!!? What did that certain section of the population in the US do that triggered the 'The Happening' and why did it occur in the US first at all? These questions and others raised by the script as written by M. Night Shyamalan simply smells of lazy writing to me which he tries to cover up by throwing in little pieces of science from various characters now and again. Does M. Night Shyamalan expect me to fill in so many of these blanks and do his job for him. I may even go so far as to say that M. Night Shyamalan probably figured he could sell the script regardless of his lazy writing because he is M. Night Shyamalan after all.
To reviewers who have lavished this with 5 stars ratings, I am not saying that my opinion has anymore merit than others but I would ask some 5 star reviewers to review 'The Happening' as a singular motion picture and not to give it more credit than it is due based on their own interpretation of what it may or may not be about or that it is something different to the normal Hollywood blockbusters. M. Night Shyamalan had every intention I am sure of wanting this to be as big a blockbuster as 'The Sixth Sense', Unbreakable' or 'Signs' but he seems fresh out of stories he can sustain for 90 minutes now. Review what is shown on screen and not how you interpret the missing pieces. I would ask the same from 'The Happening' haters. Surely this is not as bad as 'The War Of the Worlds' remake!! The Happening does have high artistic merit which I feel was wasted in the end product.
My final reflection, worth a rent just to see why this film generated so much debate which at the end of the day it does not deserve. See it and forget it. For me a 2 star rating simply because of the lazily written last 35 minutes and the complete lack of reality regarding any sign of human physiological damage that should have been sustained by probably everyone to some degree but even more so to the two main leads and in particular the little girl. 2 stars also reflect M. Night Shyamalan for making feel like I have to write such a long review for a film that is not worth it!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Surely as mis-titled a movie as there has been in a while...
Comment: It's a B-movie. No other word to describe it. And as a non-intellectual throw-away B-movie, it's not that bad. However it comes laden with expectation - it's a Shymalayan movie - so what's the hook, and what's the twist!
Well, the hook is that mysterious deaths start occurring in the NE of the United States. Confusion reigns, as the news alternates between fear this is a terrorist attack, to the gradual realization this is.. well, just in case you haven't seen it yet I won't spoil the only `surprise' in the movie. But wait, there IS another surprise - when did Mark Wahlberg become such a dismal actor! The lines, the delivery, the timing, everything is just what you'd expect from a poorly edited 70's grindhouse movie. Can he be doing it deliberately as an in-joke? If so, the jokes on him because its cringe-worthy. If you can just take it at a B-movie level, you might get some satisfaction - because there isn't anything else to enjoy in the movie. The director has lost his flair for the gradual reveal, the careful structure, and the cinematic tools as storytelling devices.. it's a movie that is no more then the lowest denominator you might expect a movie with a plot like this to have.
The extras talk much about how this was the director's exciting foray into the world of an adult rating. And true, some of the deaths are disconcerting, and yes, there is maybe one cheap shock to be had, but sadly it's all so straightforward, and lacks any impact, except the occasional moment of impact as you hit the wall with your head at the ineptitude.
As for the twist - there is none. It's just one of those movies that you keep thinking it will go somewhere and it goes on, and on.. then.. sort of ends. And that's it.
Extras - deleted scenes are more of the same, gag reel is not as funny as some of the actual lines in the movie, featurettes are slight and frustratingly broken up into 5 to 10 minute chunks. Perhaps the movie might have been better if it had the same done to it.
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