REVIEW: The Happening (2008)

The Happening (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0949731/)

Apparently, M. Night’s been having a little fun with us. To wit:

“The No. 1 thing is I want people to say: ‘That was a really fun B-movie.’”

I said a lot of things after seeing this film. Not one of them remotely resembling what he apparently wanted me to say the most. He announced this, of course, later. Like after I’d seen the movie. I was not happy about this, as it tends to urk me when I watch crap and then am told later that it was actually supposed to be fun crap which, of course, it was not.

I can’t put it any more plain: even as a fun ‘B-movie’ this thing fails.

There was nothing fun about this film. Zooey Deschenal is fun, but he managed to rip that gift right from her cute little quirky fingers. Mark Wahlberg is about as fun as a box of colonoscopies and I’m still not sure what the hell John Leguizamo was doing there. Did he show up at the wrong shoot and Night thought, “hey, what the hell. I’ll write something in for him.”? I think he died in there somewhere. I think. A lot of people died. But I’ll tell you what would have fixed this problem right the hell up: Dr. Seuss.

If just one literate bastard had run out into the town and shouted, “I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees! I speak for the trees!,” perhaps they could have fooled those leafy sons-a-bitches. I mean, they’re trees for God’s sake! How the hell can we not outsmart a tree? It’s green, it’s leafy and it lounges in one spot in the sun all day. I’m thinking we could have won the cerebral contest of wills.

And in 91 minutes, Night managed to make me long for someone to tell me that this was all a joke or some ploy to push people out of the forest and into the cities. Something the chamber of commerce cooked up while binge drinking. Hey, he managed to make a monster movie that didn’t have any actual monsters. He can’t dream of letting the village die by the hand of demonic creatures dressed in red but yet the plants can kill all mankind? How does that work?

Well, it doesn’t. Which is why I think that perhaps ‘Written, Produced and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan’ is a phrase that needs to be more closely scrutinized by suits in Tinseltown.

Uncle Not Clever’s Not Patented Yet Reliable Rating: Burn the DVD. Quick. Do you need a lighter or what?