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| The Happening | 
 enlarge | Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Actors: Mark Wahlberg, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.99
Buy Used: $5.06
You Save: $24.93 (83%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  156 reviews
Sales Rank: 621
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 91
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: FOXD2253289D
UPC: 024543532897
EAN: 0024543532897
ASIN: B001DZOC6Y
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: October 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity. Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 10/07/2008 Starring: Mark Wahlberg John Leguizamo Run time: 91 minutes Rating: R
Amazon.com
You'd expect the end of the world to be no day in the park, but in M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, a day in the park is where the end begins. One otherwise peaceful summer morning, New Yorkers strolling in Central Park come to a halt in unison, then begin killing themselves by any means at hand. At a high-rise construction site a few blocks over, it's raining bodies as workers step off girders into space. And all the while, the city is so quiet you can hear the gentle breeze in the trees. That breeze carries a neurotoxin, and what or who put it there (terrorists?) is a question raised periodically as the film unfolds. But the question that really matters is how and whether anybody in the Middle Atlantic states is going to stay alive. The Happening is Shyamalan's best film since The Sixth Sense, partly because he avoids the kind of egregious misjudgment that derailed The Village and Lady in the Water, but mostly because the whole thing has been structured and imagined to keep faith with the point of view of regular, unheroic folks confronted with a mammoth crisis. Focal characters are a Philadelphia high-school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg, excellent), his wife (Zooey Deschanel) and math-teacher colleague (John Leguizamo), and the latter's little girl (Ashlyn Sanchez). Instinct says get out of the cities and move west; most of the film takes place in the delicately picturesque Pennsylvania countryside, with menace hovering somewhere in the haze. There are no special effects (apart from a wind machine and some breakaway glass), but the movie manages to be deeply unsettling in the matter-of-factness of its storytelling. Especially effective is its feel for what we might call the surrealism of banality. One warning sign that someone has been infected by the neurotoxin is irrational or erratic speech and behavior, yet Shyamalan has a genius for dialogue that sounds normal and everyday as it's spoken, yet flies apart grenade-like a second later as its logic (or illogic) sinks in. Then there's Deschanel's eye-rolling dodginess about the messages some guy has been leaving on her cellphone. Or the fellow (Frank Collis) who addresses his greenhouse plants as though they were his children--has a stray toxic zephyr wafted his way, or is this just his idea of normal? --Richard T. Jameson
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Stills from The Happening (Click for larger image)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 151 more reviews...
 Utterly Disappointing October 11, 2008
34 out of 41 found this review helpful
Someone save M. Night Shymalan from himself. For a man who insists on writing, producing and directing his own movies, he's digging an early grave for his career as a filmmaker and "The Happening" has breached the six-foot mark for his burial. Sporting a lousy script and lousy performances to boot, Shyamalan's much talked-about first R-rated film is a travesty of filmmaking that deserves no better than a 30% rating. If it were a tomato, it'd be pretty darn rotten.
The film begins in the early morning hours in Central Park. People are milling about, casually strolling, going about their business. Two young women sit on a bench chit-chatting when one of them hears a shrill scream and turns her head in the direction of the sound. What she begins to see after a moderate breeze blows through are people suddenly frozen in their tracks, still as statues, an act that mirrors that of a real-life coordinated event once performed in NY's own Grand Central Station (and I have to wonder whether the film was somehow conceived from that). As she turns to her friend Claire to tell her what she sees, her friend begins mumbling incoherently and slowly removes the hairpick from her tightly wound chignon, deliberately stabbing herself in the neck.
From there, we are taken to a construction site three blocks away at 8:39 am, only six minutes into the future from the strange occurrence at Central Park. A body drops from a fatal height and several foremen rush to his aid, only to witness several more men fall to their death. We are then scooted along to a small high school in Pennsylvania where science teacher Elliott Moore (Wahlberg) is giving an animated lecture at 9:45 am. He is suddenly pulled aside by the school principal and taken to a room where the entire faculty hears of the strange events in New York. The American media assumes at first it is some sort of biochemical terrorist attack, due to the fact that only major cities are being targeted while small towns remain safe. This theory is quickly busted when small towns suddenly fall prey, the safe zones growing smaller and smaller as Elliott, his wife Alma (Deschanel) and fellow teacher and close friend Julian (Leguizamo) try to find a haven from this unseen and presumably unstoppable force.
"The Happening" glows with promise in its first ten minutes but withers quickly after, leading its audience into a deep dark abyss of disappointment. At a tight 1 hour and 30 minutes, the film is still agonizingly long, what with its laughable scientific theories and hackneyed performances. Wahlberg and Deschanel embarrass themselves time and time again, but I have to wonder whether it's really their fault. Is it due to Shyamalan's joke of a screenplay or his poor direction? These actors are better than this and their other films are proof of it. Leguizamo is the only semblance of a saving grace, making the most with what little he's got. The rest of the cast come and go, largely unknown and largely insignificant still.
Bottom line: There isn't much more to say about "The Happening" except that it ain't happening, if you get my drift. Feel free to watch it and formulate your own opinion if you wish, but don't say you haven't been warned.
 If you have seen this with your student discount it was still worth your time September 8, 2008
20 out of 32 found this review helpful
The movie's concept is certainly an unsettling one and the opening of the movie is quite a push. An unseen force is causing people to suddenly become disorientated, lose the ability to speak and then commit suicide in creatively gruesome ways that richly deserve the first R rating Shyamalan has garnered. The fact that it first happens in New York City causes people to think initially that it is a terrorist attack. As the invisible "plague" spreads through other cities in the Northeast, that possibility becomes less likely.
But of course there's an intimate story, one that revolves around high school science teacher, Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) who has a nutty problem worrying that his wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel), is having an affair when all she did was enjoy a tiramisu one day with a guy named Joey, who keeps calling her. (Joey's voice is played by the writer-director.) Elliot's friend Julian (John Leguizamo), with an eight-year-old daughter in tow, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), has the real problem, as his wife is not with him during the epidemic. He leaves his girl with the Moores to search for her. As the Moores and Jess bolt from Philadelphia by train, they become stuck in the small town of Filbert, as railroad communications have broken down, whereupon they seek help from one of the nuts, Mrs. Jones (Betty Buckley).
The film's problems are that given the blandness of the leading two Moores, the dialogue is bereft of wit. Nor can the formerly remarkable Zooey Deschanel save the pic, an actress who is still playing loopy roles as she did in Miguel Arteta's "The Good Girl" but who has lost her former cuteness with advancing years.
I have no final thoughts to send this commentary out on. The Happening is a movie I know I will watch again, one that might even grow on me to the point I go from lukewarm appreciation all the way to full-blown love like I have with Shyamalan's Unbreakable. In the end, I really can't come up with a reason as to why, even with its problems, this feature affected me like it has. Probably certain things just are a little bit beyond our rational understanding.
Why do they keep letting this guy make movies!? October 8, 2008
18 out of 21 found this review helpful
The sixth sense was an absolute masterpiece, and that fact still makes me give any M. Night Shyamalan (Shy) movie a chance. However Shy's movies have gotten progressivly worse, culminating with this atrocity.
Reason No. 1 this movie was bad. Acting
Who can forget Haley Joel Osment's haunting portrayal in The Sixth Sense or that of Toni Collette, who played his mother, or Bruce Willis in arguably his best role? Zooey Deschanel was awful. I have seen better acting in high school plays. John Leguizamo was completely under utilized. Whalberg did the best he could with bad dialog.
Reason No. 2 this movie was bad. The Script was Horrible
Shy tries to give the movie a basis in science but his logic is impossible to follow. Nothing about the major plot points make any sense. For example, A train stops in the middle of nowhere becasuse they have lost contact with "everyone". How does a national train system lose contact, when we have been told the event is localized to the northeast U.S. and cell phones and national media coverage are still running? The premise that plants were releasing a toxin into the air was interesting but it was never fully developed. There was no shocking reveal at the end, no payoff (like sixth sense or the village), just some lame eco babble about the planet sending us a message.
To sum up.
The dialogue is weak and directly impacts the performance of the actors. The suspense never really mounts and although there is some disturbing imagery there are absolutely no scare moments. The story is nonsensical and never goes anywhere. This is not even a renter.
Let me recap. August 9, 2008
15 out of 31 found this review helpful
OK, this is hilarious. A theatrical release that was generally panned by critics and rated a generous 2.5 stars by Amazon reviewers has already been pulled in favor of notice of the blockbuster DVD release scheduled for October 7. Can you feel the excitement? haw haw haw
In case you missed it, or haven't heard what a monumentally bad and historically stupid flick this actually is, here is the summary as best as I can remember because I slept through most of the screening on the day of its release..... a sudden ill wind blows in allegedly carrying a deadly toxin released by the American Eastern Time Zone Federation of Angry Plants (AESTFAP), people become paralyzed, walk backwards, then begin to murder themselves (come on, these are NOT suicides) in the most gruesome manner available. Mark Wahlberg is introduced as a science teacher with an aloof wife (Zoey Deschanel) who remains aloof in spite of all the deathmurdercides going on all around her and the adjacent area codes. There is some mild scurrying about as Wahlberg and a few others attempt to figure out what is actually occuring, and as our hero is leading a small band of devotees to safety spontaneously breaks into a Doobie Bros tune to prove to a madman with a shotgun that "Everything is OK!" Well, everything's not OK cause shotgun go boom boom (advise your children to look away please).
Actually, your children shouldn't be watching and you shouldn't either actually unless you are a one of these weird Shamalamadingdong "fans" I've been reading about or unless you're writing a paper on Bad Moviemaking 101. You see, the problem with this movie, aside from the bad acting and lack of a script, is that there is no villain, the Joint Chiefs aren't mobilized, there is no threat assessment, there's really not much of anything you can sink your teeth into except a ridiculous speculation that "the plants are ticked off and now they're fighting back!" Absurd right, and it ends just as it begins...stupidly.
I am hopeful that the mucketymucks finally put this hack Shyamalbomb out of bidness. His films have gotten increasingly worse since the Sixth Sense (which some consider to be semi-overrated) and its time to just say NO to this clown. Go ahead and neg away, I'm doing a public service. 1 Pistule
Sub-par beyond words October 7, 2008
14 out of 21 found this review helpful
Save for "The Sixth Sense," I can't say that I care for any of Shyamalan's work. The only other one that I somewhat enjoyed was "The Village," that though a highly improbable scenario, provides the audience with a good twist at the end. With "The Happening" we enter a new realm of preposterous with a film that is executed so poorly that it borders on the laughable and not in the way that a good b-movie can be. After pretty exciting opening scenes, the movie grinds to a mind-numbing halt, as quickly, the characters are introduced and they are about as likeable and believable as a snobbish $5.00 streetwalker who just happens to be Nietzsche scholar. Good actors are reduced to uttering ridiculous dialogue and hack their way through some unbelievably stupid scenes, such as Mark Wahlberg telling everyone to try to outrun the wind (can you imagine??) or apologizing to a houseplant for man's offenses only to realize that it's plastic. I know the latter was meant to provide a moment of levity in a grim predicament, but it's pulled off so ineptly that rather than laughing along with the character, you're merely laughing at the sheer stupidity of it all. Then there's the scene where the train passengers find themselves stranded in a little town and eating at the local diner. After watching a newscast, panic sets in and everyone takes off in their cars, leaving behind our four principal characters. One question: Where did all these train passengers get the cars they left in? Either a). The car fairy placed one under selected placemats or b). The entire population of the town just happens to be willing to carpool with a bunch of outsiders (as was the case with Leguizamo's character). There was no pleading on behalf of the passengers for the town folk to allow them to tag along, no terror induced screaming, arguments or fighting. Everyone just jumped into their respective vehicles and took off like friends with a case of the trots heading home after eating a rancid meal. Nothing encourages neighborly discourse among strangers like an unseen menace prowling in the vicinity. Zooey Deschanel seemingly had two expressions at her disposal: Googley eyed and very googley eyed. Everyone just seems bored and I couldn't wait for it all to come to an end. I took not an ounce of interest in any of these people. Far from sympathetic they were irritating and hour into the flick, I was hoping they'd do themselves in, too. Maybe Deschanel could have torn her own eyes out. Lord knows those peepers were willing to meet her halfway or Wahlberg could have bored himself to death by rambling on nonsensically about his trite theories. I can't quite remember when was the last time I disliked a movie as much as this one, but I guess since I was so looking forward to it only to be rewarded with the most preachy, arrogant and down right annoying piece of celluloid to pass for a film in sometime, I was unwilling to be forgiving. This movie is an insult to the film going public and, no doubt, all those involved with this fiasco must be asking themselves..."what the hell was I on when I took on this train wreck of a movie: .Horse tranquilizers and grain alcohol?" It's hard to believe that this piece of cinematic excrement was created by the same person who produced one of the greatest supernatural thrillers in film history.
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