"We've sensed it. We've seen the signs. Now it's ... happening"
The thing with M. Night Shyamalan movies is that you always expect it to be as good if not better than his first venture, "The Sixth Sense". And as usual more often than not, you end up terribly disappointed!
So on that premise alone, you can figure out that "The Happening" wasn't up to par with the other Shyamalan thrillers wherein some unexplained phenomenon wrecks havoc on the characters' lives culminating with a twist towards the end.
But once you let go of any expectations and simply sit back to try and 'enjoy' the movie, "The Happening" isn't that bad, after all. Because you do still have that strange and weird threat going on. A certain fear of the unknown circumstance still permeates throughout the entire movie. You still have the main characters running for their lives with that terrified look on their faces. There is still a child involved. So all these and more still sustain your somewhat limited interest till the very end.
You simply need to excuse or gloss over certain flaws. For instance, the way the dialogue uttered by some of the characters seemed totally on cue and scripted. Or the bad acting in certain scenes by a few of the characters. Speaking of main characters, Mark Wahlberg does his best to portray Elliot Moore as a multi-dimensional persona. The hero who is expected to know what to do during stressful situations yet at the same time he is also vulnerably weak in the face of an unknown life threatening occurrence. The rest of the characters pretty must just breeze through during the entire film.
In the same manner that Zooey Deschanel's portrayal of Alma Moore as some spaced out and troubled wife was difficult to read, this movie was also out of bounds. It is not quite the thriller you expected but neither is it your standard horror flick with disturbing scenes of violence. Probably just chalk it up to some unknown fluke of nature which just happened to capture your attention deficit interest for 90 minutes. I like to think that the esteemed director wanted to warn us of global warming and/or climate change and chose to highlight it by presenting us with this nature.taking.its.revenge movie. So if only for that 'warning', the movie pretty much got its message across the screen visually, vocally and graphically, loud and clear!
So on that premise alone, you can figure out that "The Happening" wasn't up to par with the other Shyamalan thrillers wherein some unexplained phenomenon wrecks havoc on the characters' lives culminating with a twist towards the end.
But once you let go of any expectations and simply sit back to try and 'enjoy' the movie, "The Happening" isn't that bad, after all. Because you do still have that strange and weird threat going on. A certain fear of the unknown circumstance still permeates throughout the entire movie. You still have the main characters running for their lives with that terrified look on their faces. There is still a child involved. So all these and more still sustain your somewhat limited interest till the very end.
You simply need to excuse or gloss over certain flaws. For instance, the way the dialogue uttered by some of the characters seemed totally on cue and scripted. Or the bad acting in certain scenes by a few of the characters. Speaking of main characters, Mark Wahlberg does his best to portray Elliot Moore as a multi-dimensional persona. The hero who is expected to know what to do during stressful situations yet at the same time he is also vulnerably weak in the face of an unknown life threatening occurrence. The rest of the characters pretty must just breeze through during the entire film.
In the same manner that Zooey Deschanel's portrayal of Alma Moore as some spaced out and troubled wife was difficult to read, this movie was also out of bounds. It is not quite the thriller you expected but neither is it your standard horror flick with disturbing scenes of violence. Probably just chalk it up to some unknown fluke of nature which just happened to capture your attention deficit interest for 90 minutes. I like to think that the esteemed director wanted to warn us of global warming and/or climate change and chose to highlight it by presenting us with this nature.taking.its.revenge movie. So if only for that 'warning', the movie pretty much got its message across the screen visually, vocally and graphically, loud and clear!
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