Andy Gapin

“Well, that was pointless.”

Those were literally the words that left my mouth as the credits for The Happening began to role. Followed by “I don’t even care if there’s anything after the credits, let’s just get out of here.” M. Night Shyamalan should have called this movie The Unhappening because whatever was supposed to happen…didn’t.

There was a pretty great premise for a movie here, one by one, every city and town in the Northeast starts getting “attacked.” Not a terrorist attack, but instead a release of spores by plants seemingly provoked by groups of people. Once inhaled, these spores effectively lead people to kill themselves. Pretty crazy idea, right? You’d think so at least. But Mr. Shyamalan forgot that to actually make a movie you can’t just have an idea, you need to also have stuff going on. It’s called entertainment for a reason.

So basically Mark Whalberg, Zooey Deschanel, and some little girl are running around trying to avoid the “attacks” for about an hour and a half. Meanwhile, we’re forced to endure horrible acting on almost everyone’s fault. Even my adored Zooey Deschanel could have acted better, though it doesn’t seem like any of them had much to work with. Normally, her ditzy, little girl completely-overwhelmed and lost in a big city demeanor, facial expressions, and overall acting style fit into the roles that she’s cast into, but this time around, I think her character needed to be a bit less helpless and give more to the movie than just providing eye candy. Mark Whalberg? Don’t even get me started on this guy.

There really is nothing redeeming about this movie. The writing was horrible. The directing was horrible. The acting was horrible. The story was horrible. I’m honestly not blown away by anything M. Night Shyamalan has done, but I expected a little more. I’ve been really hyped to see this movie since I first heard that he was filming a movie with Zooey Deschanel, but as much as I wanted to love this movie, there is nothing that could make me even remotely think it was a worthy use my time.

And what I don’t get is at the end of the movie, all of the cities were repopulated again. It was only supposed to be three months later. Where did all of these people come from? Weren’t they all dead? In reality, wouldn’t all of these cities become crime-ridden ghost towns? Without any authority left, the few remaining people would run amok and take over. It’d be complete chaos.

Also, why did no one even try covering their noses and mouths with a cloth or something. ANYTHING AT ALL. Two old ladies had gas masks on, but that was the extent of it. I don’t know, if there was something crazy going on that appeared to be in the air, I’d at least try filtering the air I was breathing.

It actually pains me to know that I’ve seen movies worse than this.

Rating: D-