Review of The Happening (2008) by Bigz — 12 Oct 2014

I understand that Shyamalan can have a very particular style and specific angles he wants to define. That being said, this movie, while having interesting ideas tossed around, finished with nothing but gore and jibberish for acting.

I can see that the approach is that maybe plants have the capacity to effect the human brain and its processing. So due to that it makes everyone's interactions with each other just odd and confusing.

In that sense, the performances were not that bad. But that doesn't make it an entertaining experience. This is disappointing because I know there was a lot of wasted talent and ability here. It is an interesting idea to think the planet could get defensive against humans in that way but in the end I think Shyamalan tried too hard.

There were a lot of positive elements that were in the wrong places. The genre wasn't really all that clear either. Pretty graphic and gruesome, while being light and humorously sarcastic almost...I mean what is going on? I am confident there was a well defined point in the director's mind but how it was relayed and delivered was too cryptic.

Its just like, what are you trying to say here? Because whatever it is, its not getting across. There was no emotional time to connect to any of the characters and relate to them, there was no self involvement in the struggle.

Whatever the struggle was exactly... Definitely a dip in Night's consistency in movie making.