Shit Written Down From My Head

Some history. My first M. Night Shyamalan movie was the deplorable Unbreakable. At the time I was a fan of both Willis and Jackson that I thought it might be good. I was wrong. From that moment on I was dubious about the much lauded talents of the writer/director.

Fast forward to my next one, Signs. Equally terrible, for different reasons. One of the greatest anti climatic movies I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing. Next, The Village, just as anti-climatic and just as mind numbingly pointless. Then I went back and watched the movie that made the man, The Sixth Sense. I have no idea why this movie did as well as it did. If people would just have gone and seen A Stir of Echoes instead, maybe the world would be a better place? Now, that leaves one more movie, The Lady In The Water, though it was a weak movie, it was the least annoying out of all his movies. Which by no means made it good!

So, a few weeks back I started seeing the trailer for The Happening and I thought to myself, I could get in on some of that. I’d been reading a good amount of apocalyptic or catastrophic novels - Infected by Scott Sigler, the brilliant Germ by Robert Liparulo and further back in time the very great, very awesome Swan Song by Robert McCammon not to mention all the zombie novels I’ve read - so I held high hopes for the latest Shyamalan flick.

The trailer started out interesting enough, introducing the main premis and the people who would be taken through the story. I’ve liked Mark Whalberg’s recent movies and Zooey Deschanel is almost illegally cute so the movie had some plus points before I got in there.

Before the movie begins I’m treated to the trailer for Fernando Meirelles next movie, Blindness, a very interesting catastrophic movie. Then The Happening began to happen.

From the beginning there was an undertone of disagreeability, from the opening in Central Park where the readers survey/succumb to the devestation. An opening like that, let the audience know that Shyamalan wasn’t going to be pulling his usual “imagine that part” tricks and I began to think that this was going to be a good ride.

But by the middle of the movie, I was lost. Not through any fault from me, my attention was waning, not because of fatigue, but from just a complete lack of interest. I really didn’t care for any of the characters. I didn’t care for the continuous refrence to “the event” or “something happening”.

By the end, the whole movie just smacked of unbelievability and a complete lack of caring. When the lights came up, there were a few clappers but they were drowned by grunts of displeasure and even a few boos to boot.

What made The Happening so bad? There was just no reason for it. There was nothing really for anybody that you couldn’t get better elsewhere.

The acting was stale, Deschanel was terrible - I understand her character was meant to be “lost” but it just didn’t work for me. The bit part characters, such as the Military Police character just weren’t believable nor were the crazy hot dog loving agriculturists - the movie’s tone just kept flip flopping, was I meant to laugh when the people were jumping off the buildings or was I meant to laugh at the banter between husband and wife on the subject of a cute pharmacy worker? Wasn I meant to be frightened by the implications of Mother Nature taking a bite back or was I meant to be scared for the characters long term survival? Funny or scary? It really achieved neither of them.

By the end, I’d wished that the cinema had just put the Blindness trailer on repeat instead.

So, with that, I now announce that I will never pay to go see a movie written, produced or directed by M. Night Shyamalan again. If in the future I see his next movie in my local library, for free rental and I have nothing else to do, maybe, just maybe I’ll pick it up and watch. But, then again, maybe I won’t.