The Happening

Quite fun. How much you’ll enjoy it will depend on when you give up hope of a chilling thriller to make do with a parody of catastrophe movies. I did it during the first ten minutes and I could watch the rest with a smile on my face. I don’t think there’s any other way to be satisfied, because Shyalaman simply could not mean this seriously. Or maybe he did at first, but when he realised that Wahlberg and Deschanel weren’t the right casting choices, he decided to use them differently and turn the thriller he had planned into the utmost B-movie. What takes the film down very deep are the dialogues and the way the actors utter them, otherwise it would’ve been alright, there’s even some atmosphere here and there. I really want to believe in what I’ve just written, but unfortunately, I’m not that sure. If Happening is so bad unintentionally, we are witnessing an enormous failure by a director. There’s one exchange by the end that gives me some hope that my theory is true. In the scene when Elliot is telling about the time he went to buy cough syrup. Alma: “Are you joking?” (Elliot nods in agreement). Alma: “Thanks.” (05/07/2008)

When mom gets pissed, her offspring shakes with fear in the corner. When Mother Nature loses patience, not just human kind, but also good movies and Shya’s reputation go up the spout. Unfortunately. I sincerely don’t give a damn if this is meant seriously or not (of course it is), but the result is neither fish nor fowl. Occasionally ridiculous and unintentionally entertaining and at other moments precisely the type of movie I wanted to see (in a few shots Night comes closer to the atmosphere of “The" Birds by Du Maurier than Hitch himself does). Primarily the atmospheric landscapes with a myriad flowers were really impressive; look out, Gardener’s World. I’m sorry that in many scenes I find myself laughing at my favorite and not with him. But this isn’t downright ridiculous, nor is it boring and definitely not unbearable. But thanks to Wahlberg’s “acting performance", it is unintentionally camp. If it weren’t for him, I would go higher with the marks. And what’s the movie actually like? Hard to pin down. Sometimes it just ends up that way. In my eyes, this is the first and I hope the last time this happens for M. Shit happens. What happened happened. Too bad, today is another day. ♫ OST score: 3/5 (12/06/2008)

Well, I don't know, I'm kind of on the fence about this... If that's supposed to be a warning, it's a pretty lame one... in any case, I see it as the story of two people who didn't get along very well, their marriage stagnated, but thanks to something going on in the background that made them see a lot of dead bodies, they got back together... I guess :D (20/09/2008)

We will get a point, the story moves forward along a path lined with tension and the actors guide us through this depressing world with such ease that the hour and a half flies by almost on its own. So why am I staring at ultra-low ratings and comments that constantly repeat borrowed complaints from reviews about the lack of a point and the presence of boredom? Happening is already the third film in a row by Shyamalan that the public expects to combine The Sixth Sense and Signs and be a similarly nerve-wracking affair like the two mentioned. And as a result of these expectations, a harsh impact comes. I understand this mistake with The Village, which I still consider one of the best films of my life, but with the excellent Lady in the Water, I understand it less, but if someone can't learn even on their third try, so be it. Perhaps it would be good to go to the cinema without prejudices and false expectations, and to reconcile with the unpredictable Indian Master will be on the agenda again. (23/06/2008)

An ordinary, straightforward, and boring film. And if it wasn’t for the big creaking house with a strange landlady, I wouldn't have even known that it was made by a master of tension and brilliant twists, and the fact that Shyamalan isn't afraid to show the "action" directly this time and doesn't shy away from the camera doesn't suggest this either. So, we have several truly interesting and bloody accidents that are striking and real enough to captivate (construction site, car, combine harvester), but the atmosphere is nonexistent. There are a lot of unnecessary peripheral that make it impossible for the plot to thicken and work on the tension. And the final twist isn’t surprising, either, it was expected considering the name of the director. (08/10/2008)