June 25, 2008

"The Happening" and Other Weird Stories

Richard:
This movie happened.

1 out of...

No, that's a lie.

Well... not entirely. The movie did, in fact, happen. But it was far better than 1 star, and I have much more to say about it.

I was admittedly timid going into this film. I was not impressed with "Signs" or "The Village," and never saw "The Lady in the Water" -- mostly based on word of mouth -- so timid may actually be an understatement.

But I was wrong. "The Happening" is M. Night Shyamalan's best work since "Unbreakable."

The concept is great: people start offing themselves for no reason, en masse, showing no emotion or pain. They just jump, or shoot, or cut. The range of on-screen suicides goes from the honestly gruesome to the somewhat ridiculous. The story itself comes from Marky Mark Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel), trying to flee the city along with The Pest their friend (John Leguizamo) and his daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez).

This is much more entertaining than it sounds.

This movie is getting a lot of heat from critics. "Signs" and "The Village" were hailed as being too predictable in being unpredictable and now it seems that M. Night is getting the reverse rap on this. No, there isn't a big "YOU'RE DEAD!" plot twist, nor is there even a basic understanding of why this happened at the end.

Shut up and enjoy that fact.

3 1/2 out of 5



Thaddeus:
Just when you think all the cool ideas are taken, something comes along and causes massive sections of the population to kill themselves for no reason.

While there were some pretty screwed up deaths tossed right at the audience, I wasn't freaked out by "The Happening" so much as interested -- curious, even. I wanted to know where we were headed and I was honestly wondering what would happen to these people.

Richard got his digs in up above about the whole "Marky Mark" thing, but I have to admit that I'm totally oblivious to any of that. Wikipedia had to clarify things for me after I caught a similar reference during my study of "An Evening With Kevin Smith." All that aside, I have nothing but respect for Mark Wahlberg after his performance in "The Happening." He plays a regular guy, a high school science teacher, and he plays it flawlessly. This is especially cool because the first memorable Wahlberg appearance for me was as the forceful, filthy-mouthed staff sergeant in "The Departed." Couldn't be more different, but both delivered expertly.

The whole central cast was great, from John Leguizamo to Zooey Deschanel (who I held a bit of a grudge against for being in the rather middling "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movie). And let's not forget young Ashlyn Sanchez, who showcases Shyamalan's continuing streak of unaggravating child performances.

The greatest moments, however, were in the interactions with the bizarre people found over the course of the film's exodus. Betty Buckley as Mrs. Jones was particularly striking.

But honestly, my comments are meager compared to Jeremiah's, which will shortly be taking you on a thrilling exodus exposing the crimes committed in other reviews of this film you may have stumbled across. So, let's wrap it up.

For my part, normal people confronted with the bizarre and unknown, when played well, always makes for a good time:

3.5 out of 5

-Thad out



Jeremiah:
M. Night Shyamalan's newest movie is not near the rousing failure that others would have you believe. It is by no means a rousing success, but it does make an attempt, and for that we must give it credit.

It seems, for one reason or another, when it comes to M. Night, people insist on judging his present works against his first two masterpieces -- and they are masterpieces, let's not squabble on that.

Spielberg and Scorsese are looked at film by film. When either one of them have a new release, people judge it as a film by that particular person and, depending on the quality, say yea or nay. Sometimes they will say that it is their best or, for their less successful attempts, say it was admirable . Yet rarely will critics say "Well, it's no, 'Jaws.'"

Critics do this constantly to M. Night.

One must acknowledge that steady working film-makers, from time to time, make masterpieces, with a mixture of luck, talent and sheer audacity. When they're not making crown jewels of the cinema, they are still trying to make a good movie. Even then, one man's masterpiece is another man's "Bad Boys II."

Simply put, M. Night Shymalan is a film-maker and his films are well-made, from the technical stand point. One can hardly punish him because "The Happening" is not as great as "The Sixth Sense" or "Unbreakable." It was still made well, with blood, sweat and passion.

Also, critics -- myself included -- should not wail about how nobody dares to come up with new and interesting concepts, then immediately turn around to yell at the man who attempts to do so. In effect, this is largely what I perceive the critics to be doing to M. Night. The reason may be that, since they cannot discuss or review the the film for fear of giving away the plot, they resort to criticizing the man behind the camera instead. So I will relive myself of this particular yoke.

SPOILERS WARNING!

FUCKING SPOILERS, NUMB NUTS!


The plot of “The Happening” is actually quite ingenious. Owing a great deal to Hitchcock's (another director who suffers a similar critical fate as M. Night) “The Birds.” Both plots involve a natural phenomenon starting just as suddenly as they end.

The difference is that M. Night's idea is more intellectually intriguing. You could say that “The Happening” goes about its leisurely, frills-free pace so as to let you ponder. Indeed, at a scant 91 minutes, it hardly overstays its welcome.

By now everyone knows the bare plot: a toxin has been released into the air, causing people to commit suicide. The toxin affects the “electro-chemical blabbity blah blah,” otherwise known as our self-preservation. It shuts off our own self-defense mechanism. The whole twist is who, and why.

Well, here's the twist: there is no twist.

Why does their have to be a twist? Why? Because it's a Shymalan movie? Grow up.

The explanation given is that the plants are releasing the toxin. Mother nature killing us? Some critics have called this absurd, silly, and just plain stupid. Is it though?

Any one with a high school education knows that nature has a hellish freaky symbiotic relationship with, y'know... everything. Man being the top of the food chain, the most rational thinking and, all-in-all, the most complex. But the price we pay is that we are curiously out of touch with nature.

Hell, most people consider nature a bother and wish to get as far away from it as possible. As a race, we have basically raped our own planet. We've done astronomical damage to the one thing that allows us life. So there's global warming, a flimsy ozone layer and for what? So we could drive a fucking Esclade?

This isn't a rant on environmentalism, this is fact. Why wouldn't nature wish to destroy us? Seriously? We've been destroying nature ever since the industrial revolution.

It's no secret that plants evolve at a much faster pace than humans. (Editor's Note: If you somehow didn't know that, have you ever considered why there are so many varieties of corn?) So why is it so unreasonable that the eco-system finally views the human race as a credible threat? It's not. One wonders why it waited this long.

The toxin seems to be relegated mainly to the east coast. Reason? Who knows. It is the industrial East Coast, not to mention all those nuclear power plants. Makes sense when looked at through the spy glass of the degradation of nature.

That's the plot though, the characters are not as bad as the other reviewers would have you believe either. Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is a high school science teacher. Elliot is our way into the movie. All is from his perspective. That includes his gorgeous wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel). A woman who believes she has committed a graver sin than she actually has. What this sin is, I will not say. I will let this be one of the few surprises in the movie. Suffice to say it was a joy to watch Alma and Elliot realize how foolish they've been. It was also nice to see that the incident in question felt real, and was not there to add unneeded melodrama.

The two flee Philadelphia, when news hits that a possible terrorist act has been committed. The two, along with Elliot's friend, Julian the math teacher (John Leguizamo), and his daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) flee the city.

The movie is really about the people they meet, and the journey of the foursome. Along the way, they will give theories as to what is happening. At the same time, you will notice that everyone is re-acting very realistically. The journey, in many ways, is an introspective one. Few people are flying into hysterics. Whalberg's paranoia is a slow build and fascinating to watch. Deschanel's Alma starts out distracted and slowly evolves into a focused being.

Then suddenly just as quickly as it began, it stops. Why? “It's a natural phenomenon, we may never know what caused it.” Yet, why did it only concern itself with the east coast? One scientist believes it was nature giving us a warning.

When asked why they can't explain it better, they shrug. How can they explain it better? Conclusions are brought about from careful observation, intelligent thinking and comparative data. What do they have to compare it to. It was a happening. An instant. They can only guess.

“The Happening” is no “Sixth Sense,” and I didn't expect it to be. It's flawed to be sure, yet I was never truly bored. M. Night strove for a new way to frighten us. How can you outrun the wind? How can you escape nature? If you abuse your natural resources enough, will those resources not fight back? All the time he peppers his work with what I call restrained gore. He shows you just enough, and then lets your imagination make you squirm.

M. Night tried to do something unique, which is to give us a new and interesting thriller. He succeed in that, even if his thriller did not fully succeed. I, for one, am grateful for the attempt. While the movie is by no means an event, it is a happening.


/ 5

Yours Until Hell Freezes Over,
Jeremiah

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