*** Official THE HAPPENING Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Dome Vongvises]

Not counting the Avatar movie, Shyamalan is going to have a hard time looking for work after this one. At least Uwe Boll has a government funding his movies.

 

[DavidPla]

Considering it's had a 13 M Friday, Studios at least know he can still OPEN a picture so I doubt this will sink him just yet.

 

[Edwin-S]

The comments about this movie have confirmed, to me, that Shyamalan started at the top and has been going downhill ever since.

I've seen three of his films: Sixth Sense, Signs, and The Village. Each has been worse than the last, with only the Sixth Sense being a film that I thought was good.

I would like to thank Patrick Sun for saving me 10 dollars, as I was thinking of trying one last time to see if Shyamalan had anything good left in him. Judging by the comments, I can surmise the answer is no.

 

[Niko Nykanen]

The beginning om the movie was brilliant, with the setup and all, but when they started hinting what the cause was I was really uncomfortable.. Come on! That´s so "This Island Earth"! Don´t please. Then the parts at the end with the woman was seriously creepy but.. I dunno. Wahlbergs acting was not up to par. Downright embarrasing from time to time. Especially in the beginning of the movie..

I don´t wanna call this horrible as the beginning was downright brilliant. I just wish Shamalamadingdong would´ve held in the "explanation" until the end.. bacause that kinda let the movie go downhill from the point the explanation was given.
:frowning:

 

[TravisR]

I thought Mark Wahlberg looked like Alec Guiness compared to Zooey Deschannel. She was awful from beginning to end. I said it in the review thread but I enjoy unusual or odd acting choices but with this movie, it's like Shyamalan got his actors to deliver B movie performances but the rest of the movie wasn't a B movie so the actors all stand out as terrible.

 

[Holadem]

Yikes. Die hard Shyamalan fan but I will be giving this one a pass. Everyone misfires at some point I guess, and the panning of this one is just universal (including by many solid fans) to dismiss.

--
H

 

[Robert Crawford]

I actually think Signs was better than Sixth Sense. It was more thought provoking for me and in a good way.

 

[todd s]

Just one question...Were some people NOT affected by the toxin? In the first scene we see the one women on the bench be unaffected while EVERYONE around her is. And at the end the French guy also was unaffected while everyone else was.

 

[Niko Nykanen]

Well, I just thought that everyone wasn´t affected at the same exact time..
(saved you there Shama-lama-ding-dong!)

 

[todd stone]

another reason why this movie made no sense

 

[TravisR]

Yeah. Except for Lady In The Water, I've loved his stuff but like you said, everyone misfires at some point. I'm still looking forward to his next movie because the guy is definitely a talent.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Eh?

 

[Patrick Sun]

Zooey Deschanel has the weirdest blue eyes, they are truly spooky.

 

[Jeff]

Studios seem to go out of their way of selecting bad clips for talk shows. If I based my movie watching on the clips I see, I probably wouldn't see anything.

 

[Sam Davatchi]

Thanks to the reviews I contributed to the box office of this movie without seeing it!

 

[Tim Glover]

Might just be the worst movie I've seen in a very long, long time. Makes something from Michael Bay look like like a Scorcese film.

Dumb...acting was bad. Screenplay was dowright silly. I even thought to myself: 'was this on purpose or did MNS try and make a stupid B film?'.


Where have you gone M. Night Shyamalan? :frowning:

 

[Radioman970]

Well, wasn't as bad as all that. I grew up on Tales from the Darkside and stuff like that. Reminded one of one of those episodes. Pretty fun film actually. Yeah, some of the criticisms are true, but the acting wasn't 100% horrible, just a few lines here and there. It's a fantasy film...I'm able to suspend my disbelieve and reframe from nitpicking. Sure makes a lot of films other people dislike okay with with me. One thing I remember reading is that the "gore was placed in the movie for no reason"...meaning random. Which really isn't how I saw it...an event like this would have random moments of gore, it's just the nature of how it gets played out.

With that said, this certainly isn't the filmmaker's best film. I'd say it's the worst, although I have yet to see LitW. Peters out at the end. What the hell was that? Some in the audience at my showing "laughed at" certain bits but they laughed at the intentional humor too. I got the impression they thought it was okay.

@todd s
About some being effected and some not...this concept really isn't that difficult to believe. People are different and some perhaps have a certain amount of immunity. A film like this deals with a lot of unknowns in its story. Everything isn't going to be spelled out. Eventually the other woman on the park bench would be effected.

 

[Radioman970]

Not picking on you..but I'm reading a lot of stuff like this. REally, he's gone nowhere. He's still making movies that look like movies he has made. It's just the pieces don't add up to something you like. I actually felt it was a good looking film. I'm partial to woodsy scenes anyway.

 

[Jari K]

..and for me it was one of the best. I love that film.

When it comes to Shyamalan, people really "love" or "hate" his work. There´s rarely "in-between" (="it was okay, but not great by any means", "Solid film and moody, but eventually not very interesting", etc).

edit: Btw. "The Happening" did $30.5M (US) on the first weekend. Since the (estimated) budget is around $57, this is not all that bad.. "The Incredible Hulk" did $54.5M.

 

[Tim Glover]

Radioman, I respect your point. For me personally, as someone who has loved the majority of MNS films. (especially 6th Sense, Unbreakable, & Signs)...his last offerings just look and feel different. I suppose they are similar in a technical MNS way in some respects...but the quality of the screenplays have really, really gone downhill. And fast. I'm not a hater though. Big fan of his and have re-purchased his films on Blu-ray.

Everyone reacts different but I had higher hopes for The Happening. I think alot of people did and are coming away very disappointed.

Jari, opening weekends aren't a good barometer really...word of mouth will most likely kill this one though.