Anyway the wind blows...

#8 - The Happening - 2008

"You're not interested in what happened to the bees?"
-- Elliot

This film contains a scene where characters run away from the wind. I want you to ponder on that for a moment. Go on, I'll still be here...

...OK pondered? Right. It's true, and happens to be the most entertaining thing about 'The Happening'. Not that scene itself (Though it did take a moment for the unbelievably of it all to catch up with me - put it down to the shock) but just how completely wrong headed it is, and this from a man who was widely touted as 'The new Spielberg' at one point.

'The Happening' opens in central park. A Woman and her friend sit reading a book together when one of them notices a scream in the distance. She quickly notices that some people look like they're gouging at their own flesh (We then cut to her point of view to see it, but oddly enough there's no gouging to be seen). Her friend acts weirdly before stabbing herself in the neck with what looks like a giant knitting needle she happened to be hiding in her hair. We then meet Marky Mark Wahlberg (Giving a career-worst performance) as he tells his Science class about the missing Bees, and demands to know why people aren't more interested in the fact that all the Bees have gone missing. It's also something that neither he or any other character will mention ever again, so presumably it's nothing to do with the plot. Anyway, he and all the other teachers at the school (Including former Super Mario Brother John Leguizamo) are informed there are terrorist attacks happening all over so they evacuate. The Train they're on stops in the middle of some small Town. Once there they find out that all the attacks are taking place just on the North East, so they all scatter (handily only leaving us with a cast of a handful). From there its a quest to get to the least populated place they can find and hope to stay alive.

It's no secret but I'm going to spoil it anyway. It's the plants and trees that are killing us. They block some pathways in our Brain that stop us from self harming, leading us all to kill ourselves in often very gruesome ways (Like having Lions tear us apart at the Zoo). To be honest the whole thing is more of a muddled mess than it sounds. The idea is that plant life feels threatened by Man, so seeing as it has no place to go it has to evolve its own defense mechanism which it secretes whenever there are large groups of people around (Hence why the attack starts in a Park - though there's no reason why it couldn't have started in a Garden Centre. Go on, name me a film, much less a horror film that opens with people dying in a Garden Centre? Never going to happen). What that whole thing doesn't explain is why is the wind involved? Before an attack it's usually all calm, then suddenly the wind picks up blowing secretion into our faces (Steady on now). Is nature conspiring against us? Why am I putting more thought into this than M. Night Shyamalan did?

Ah, M. Night, what happened to thee? He started off scaring people all over the world with 'The Sixth Sense' and follows it up with the fantastic yet vastly underrated 'Unbreakable' before seemingly freefalling with 'Signs' (Which I genuinely like), 'The Village' (Which I genuinely hated) and then this (Which genuinely insulted my intelligence). M. Night the Director though is technically excellent, which makes it harder to dislike his films. Even 'The Village' has one or two very good sequences amongst the rest of the dross. This film is no exception. There are some well staged moments (Mainly the glut of suicides, one or two of which are quite disturbing) and love him but he tries his hardest to make wind seem like a genuine threat. This of course consists of shots of Trees/Plants blowing in the wind, or shots of characters staring ominously at Trees/Plants blowing in the wind.

M. Night the writer however really needs to give it up. This feels like the first draft of a script, if that. M. Night seemed to think of the idea first, then the Deaths and just gave up on the dialogue, almost like it were just placeholders until he gets around to writing that ever elusive second draft. I mentioned Wahlberg was bad, and that's mainly because he's given a shitty script to work with. It's obvious watching him that he has no idea how to play the part, there's literally nothing on the page. Faring about the same is the gorgeous Zooey Deschanel as his Wife (Who rounds off my perfect woman double bill with Elizabeth Banks - oh and if you get the chance check out her album 'She & Him - Volume one') as she's given nothing to do but look wide eyed, but at least she manages to do that well.

There are some laughable moments here, whether it be running from the Wind or the unnecessary shotgun death of two kids. I'm sure M. Night was trying to make a point about how, at the end of it all, we're just Nature's bitch, but if I wanted to see that I'd watch 'An Inconvieniant Truth'.

At least Al Gore would never put his name on a shitty film like this.