The Happening Movie Review

The Happening (1998)

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Written by: M. Night Shyamalan
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Jeremy Strong, Alan Ruck
Rated: R
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Plot
A science teacher, his wife, and a young girl struggle to survive a plague that causes those infected to commit suicide.

Verdict
This is often silly, more preoccupied with the depiction of violent deaths than the story or the characters. Some scenes are quite comical, but that doesn't seem to be the intention of the movie. While you could claim this is supposed to be a B-movie and that's the joke, that seems like revisoinist history to cover up a dud. It's a neat idea that needs more development. The idea that plants attack is good enough, but the feeling that you're never safe and always on the run is a great motivator that isn't developed. The movie never gets past plants attack. This seems like a paycheck movie for everyone involved.
Skip it.

Review
This was part of Shyamalan's descent with each movie doing worse critically than the prior one, hitting bottom with his next film The Last Airbender.

In no time this forces us to ask the question, what's happening? People are committing suicide on a massive level. This movie hooks you instantly. Why are people killing themselves? The first answer we get is some kind of toxin that reverses human's self preservation instinct.

It really seems like the movie just wants to show us gruesome deaths. It's unwarranted. It's one thing to want to kill yourself, it's another to go to lengths to make it as gory as possible. This focuses more on the deaths than the growing tension and fear. The movie wants to be distressing, sacrificing story for shock value.

Mark Wahlberg plays science teacher Elliot. Wahlberg can be really good in certain roles, but he has a type. It's difficult to buy him as a teacher. Elliot, his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), and his friend flee Philadelphia on a train to escape this toxin. The train stops prematurely, stranding everyone on board in Filbert. As the outbreak nears Filbert per news reports, everyone leaves the city by car. Many, many people arrived by train and yet everyone leaves by car, leaving only Elliot and his family stranded. This is just one example of how this movie ignores details. Everyone on the train should be stranded in this town.

Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, Ashlyn Sanchez play Elliot, Alma, Jess

Elliot finds a ride from a guy that's really into hot dogs. The world is ending and this guy just wants to extol the virtues of hot dogs. I also began to wonder how Elliot and his party haven't been affected. It's happening to everyone around them yet they are okay.
This uses the sound of wind as the signal that danger is close by. It never states the toxin is transferred by spores, but at a certain point the scary wind becomes comical. Several times characters are just running, trying to stay ahead of the wind. Later in the movie Elliot states plants are triggered by human contact. If that's the case would wind have anything to do with it? If it were a gas wouldn't the wind disperse the concentration? I don't think the movie took the time to figure out the mechanism.

Mark Wahlberg plays Elliot

There are a lot of uncomfortable close face shots. I'm not sure the reason or what it's supposed to imply. I get why people have revisited this movie and deemed it some kind of B-movie homage. There are a lot of scenes and choices that bolster the idea, but if that's the case, the movie needs to clue us in early and clearly reinforce the idea. This starts out as a serious thriller then devolves. It's too easy to go back and try to dress this up as something it's not. On the other hand, when Wahlberg is talking to a plant I had to wonder if he questioned that scene and the movie as a whole. Is this the point where he reminded himself it's about the paycheck? Most of the dialog is ridiculous, but not ridiculous enough for this to seem like a joke. People are worried about the toxin gas entering their homes while their windows are wide open.

None of this movie makes sense. You could look at this as a big budget B-movie as it fits the genre well, but that feels like an excuse for the lack of story, inconsistency, and overacting. A B-movie is bad due to budget constraints. It's odd to choose to be bad and yet not make this ridiculous enough that the intention is clear. This seems more like a paycheck movie and everyone cashed in. This movie made three times its budget.