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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
 Posted - 11/13/2008 : 1:33:26 PM
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Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Manoj!
Let me explain.
Earlier this year, after writing up a movie I liked, but could see for the flawed piece that it was, I started thinking of going out on a limb and writing up a film that I thought was a genuine classic, a truly great film. This was before that little show-off exercise of taking on the Disney moves, and long before I’d decided to cap it off with Never Cry Wolf.
So, I figured it was time to take a break from all of this, maybe. But first, I was determined to give a review of the film I’d picked, have it out by the end of the year, and finish 2008 with a quiet winner. Problem is, I’d be writing up two great films back to back, which doesn’t exactly fit the spirit of this site.
But Jabootu smiled on me. I usually go to my Dad’s place on Sunday to have dinner then watch a movie. He usually picks the movie, though sometimes I’ll bring one to his place. This last week, he told me he’d rented The Happening. Uh oh. He hadn’t read much about the film, so I decided to take one of my own to watch, just in case we decided to turn it off after a half hour.
Well, we saw it through. About twenty minutes in, I knew: this would be a good in-betweener, a bad movie— strike that, an awful movie, maybe even so bad it was good, to go between the good ones.
So, I thank you, Mr. Manoj “Night” Shyamalan, for this gift. Though I’m sure you don’t want thanks of that kind. Because M. Night Shyamalan is the one to blame for this fiasco. I read one review noting that Shyamalan has one big problem: his large ego will not allow him to let his movie have the handprints of anyone but himself, meaning that he won’t listen to people who point out that maybe, just maybe, his ideas for the film aren’t that great. Another critic said that the only deep question this movie raised was how this guy kept getting financing for his increasingly bad work.
I went ahead and rented the DVD, and dictated my notes. Watching the Special Features, I noted that Shyamalan has started acting a little manic in the intros and interviews. Also, he gave an interview when The Happening was released, in which his behavior resembled that of Gary Busey in the current season of Celebrity Rehab. (Check the thread on that show for my comments; it’ll explain an upcoming joke or two.)
Notice how Management isn’t getting on me to get on with the review? I figured it’s about time to retire that character. But the Afterthoughts section will be pretty brief. When writing up Lady in the Water, I gave Shyamalan the kind of treatment that I actually wouldn’t mind getting if Tawny Kitaen were administering it. But I digress.
Anyway, if you don’t know, or don’t remember, my comments about this guy, give ’em a read. One sign that your career in Hollywood is over may be that you show that you can’t learn from your mistakes. The tagline for this movie could describe Shyamalan’s self destruct: We’ve sensed it. We’ve seen the signs. Now, it’s happening.
Ya Know It’s BAD, It’s BAD, Shyamalan!
The opening credits appear over several time-lapse shots of cloudscapes. It’s well-done, but it was probably a little more original around 25 years ago, when Koyaanisqatsi did it. Of course, Shyamalan makes sure to have his credit linger a bit longer than the others. It’s a director’s prerogative to show off a bit, but still. I got the feeling while watching this that James Newton Howard’s score, at least, would be pretty decent (and it was).
We fade up on Central Park, and a subtitle tells us it is “8:33 AM”. Two young ladies sit on a park bench, making small talk that strikes a bad note. The dialogue and the performances do not convince. At all. One of the ladies hears a distant scream and turns to look; the other lady starts to freeze in place. The first lady also notices that the other people in the park are acting strangely, with most of them slowing and freezing up; once again, the dialogue is pretty weak. Oh, and the park seems pretty crowded for this time of day. We’re off to a bad start. The second lady continues to ignore her. Looky-Loo Lady looks around, and for some reason, she isn’t affected by whatever is happening to the others. She turns to her friend, but the second lady slowly reaches back, pulls her hairpin out of her hair, and jabs it into her throat. Fairly strong stuff, though I’ve seen much worse in recent horror flicks. Oh, and ladies, here’s an idea: don’t ever use a hairpin that could do double-duty as an icepick.
We go to “Three blocks from Central Park, 8:59 AM”. We’re at a construction site, and a foreman is hanging around, joshing with some of the workers (um, yeah, leaning on your shovels at the beginning of the work day?) when they see another worker fall from the top floor and bust himself wide open when he hits the ground. The foreman rushes up and tries to call for help, and once again, his performance doesn’t ring true. Uh oh, THUD! Another one falls. Then another. Splat! They look up to see several construction workers leaping off the top floor and falling to their deaths (Geronimo!). Kidding aside, this shot is creepily effective, and one can see why the ad campaign featured it so prominently. Too bad the foreman’s performance and dialogue undermined the whole thing.
Right now, it’s a mixed bag at best. A fairly intriguing premise, undermined by poor execution. We’re about seven minutes in, so let’s go ahead and self-destruct, shall we? Because now we go to “Philadelphia High School, Philadephia, 9:45 AM”. Thanks, Night, I thought Philadelphia High School was in Anchorage, Alaska. Anyway, we’re in a science classroom. Oy vey, the teacher is played by Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg’s character is named Elliot Moore, but I’m callin’ him Marky Mark, cuz I can. Besides, after this movie, one wouldn’t blame Wahlberg if he decided to go back to being a rapper. MM is supposed to be a science teacher, but his “lecture” sounds more like a political screed from an extreme environmentalist. It’s a weird bit about pollution, global warning, and the decline in the bee population. On the blackboard, one can see, “Attributed to Einstein: If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then Man would have only four years of life left.” From what I’ve read, the only one “attributing” this line to Einstein is Shyamalan himself. By the, while watching Marky Mark play a science teacher, I came to two conclusions. (1) Caterpillars nevah, evah, evah, evah, evah, wear brown boots. (2) Good directors nevah, evah, evah, evah, evah, get Mark Wahlberg to play a science teacher. The vice-principal comes in and tries to get Marky’s attention, and he acts more like a class clown than a teacher here. Ummmm, right. Teach, you might want to look for work elsewhere if this is how you act all the time.
The vice-principal leads Marky back to the school’s auditorium, where most of the teachers have gathered. A guy whom I assume is the principal announces that, “There appears to be an event happening.” He notes the incident in Central Park, saying that it’s believed to be a neurotoxin released by terrorists. Note that at this point, nothing has happened in Philadelphia. Anyway, the principal says they need to dismiss the students and send them home for the day. Because Night Said So. We meet Marky’s best friend, another teacher whom we’ll learn soon enough is named Julian (John Leguizamo), and we notice that the principal is played by Alan Ruck. This is kind of a laugh moment, but I have to say I feel a bit sorry for Ruck. The guy is now in his forties, with graying hair, and yet I still look at him as a teen actor, and I’ll bet I’m not alone. Through no fault of his own, Ruck has to deal with being associated forever with one role he played in a movie twenty-two years ago. Anyone know what it is? Anyone? Bueller?
While dismissing his class, Marky is sure to give them the poor man’s version of the scientific process. Hmmmmmm, I smells a plot point, I does. I smells the Plot-O-Matic 3000, I does. Anyone want to guess if this will come into play again? Just after Marky dismisses the students, Julian shows up in the classroom; his mother’s on the phone, scared to death. Julian reassures her that this hasn’t hit Philadelphia, which means we’ll hear that Philly is in the crosshairs in about twenty seconds. We’re also given some clunky expo that Julian is a math teacher (and an annoying math geek), though it doesn’t really come into play during the rest of the movie. Julian’s mom has invited Julian, Marky Mark, and “Alma” to come to her house out in the country to ride this thing out. Marky says he’ll think about it. Then Marky calls Alma, whom we’ll learn in a moment is his wife. Julian offers to get his own wife and daughter and join them at the train station, and we get some more clunky expo that Marky and Alma are going through a rough patch, and Marky’s not confident the marriage will hold. Don’t worry; we’ll get plenty more of this throughout the movie, though it has no real effect on what’s going on.
We cut directly to a close shot of a glassy-eyed Zooey Deschanel, whom I’ll assume is playing Alma (Immediate Future Brad: yep, though it’s no big feat predicting this). She’s watching a TV report on the, uh, happening, as her cell phone rings, revealing that a “Joey” is calling. Again, this will go nowhere. I’ll be very generous and just say that Zooey Deschanel’s acting in this scenes isn’t impressive. She lets the phone ring, until it finally stops, just as Marky Mark comes in. They turn on the TV to see what’s going on. Apparently, in the last hour or so, people in New York were able to get the bodies from Central Park to a coroner’s office and autopsy them, revealing that these neurotoxins have worked, basically, by targeting a part of the brain that’s in charge of self-preservation and putting it in reverse, effectively setting that person on self-destruct. They spell this out in ten-dollar words, then Alma sums it up: “It makes you kill yourself.” After all, we need to just tell the audience what it does, because them yokels won’t be able to work it out themselves, right? Also.... Okay, I can buy how this gas works, at least for 82 minutes. I do not buy that a Hazmat team has collected the bodies (and that’s the only way to get them; think about it), brought them to a medical examiner, done a full autopsy, and drawn this conclusion, all in the space of less than an hour! Oh, and one more thing: let’s take the movie at its word on how this gas works. Fine. No problem... for now. But it will come back and bite the movie on the ass in the late innings.
Marky goes to the bedroom and hurriedly packs up; the movie makes sure we see him pick up a little plastic mood ring and put it on. Yes, the movie will dwell on this, too. Back in the living room, Alma gets another call from Joey, and she quickly picks up and hangs up to keep Marky from finding out. All we hear from Joey is “Hello?” Recognize the voice? Yep, it’s our esteemed writer-director, making his cameo. Shyamalan finally got smart enough to limit his cameo to one spoken word, done off-screen. But he lists his name fairly high in the cast at the end, above people who have much more screen time and dialogue. So, the big-ass ego is still there.
They make it to the train station, where they see a big TV monitor showing the breaking news: autopsies have confirmed that it’s a natural poison. Again, in less than an hour? This thing has gotten pretty ridiculous, and it’s early yet: we’re all of fifteen minutes in. We meet Julian’s daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), and Julian tells Marky that his wife is stuck across town and will have to take the next train. Alma and Julian have a very weird exchange, then Alma pulls Marky aside, suspecting that Marky told Julian about “our fight”* She starts berating him about it, and Marky does the “Awwwww, come on hon-e-e-e-ey” bit, when an intelligent person might say, “Is this really the time or place?!” Alma wants to sit apart from the others, and I’m beginning to think this whole marriage-in-trouble business was an attempt by Shyamalan to pad the story out. Anyhoo, our heroes board an Amtrak to Harrisburg and get underway.
*[In the Speshul Feechurs section of the DVD, we saw a deleted scene of a fight between Marky and Alma that was supposed to open the film. For once, Night made a wise decision in cutting it; the scene was even worse than most of the junk that made it in.]
We go to another park scene, and the subtitle says it’s “Rittenhouse Park, Philadelphia, 11:31 AM”. The park is full of people who don’t seem to realize that there’s a citywide evacuation underway. Pan up to the trees, with the wind whistling through their branches (yes, that will be a constant motif here). We see a cop going through a traffic jam, stopping to say hi to a cab driver he just so happens to know. Ah, looks like the crazy gas is takin’ hold! Everyone does the freeze-in-place thing, then the cop pulls out his sidearm and blows his brains out. The cab driver gets out of his car, takes the gun, and blows his own brains out. Then a lady standing on the sidewalk comes over, and so on. At this point, I said to my Dad, “Hey! Musical Russian Roulette!” Dad laughed; by this time, we both knew that any appeal this movie would have would be of the MST3K variety (and for the record, yes, they have a Rifftrax available, which I’m tempted to buy; the sample I heard had me cracking up).
Back to the train. Now we learn why Alma wanted to sit along: she wanted to give Joey a call and not have her husband find out. No, they’re not having an affair. They had dessert together once, and that was it. Alma’s getting tired of Joey fawning over her, and she name-drops a couple of good thrillers, perhaps because Manoj was hoping that the mere mention of them could somehow make this movie better through Hollywood osmosis. Or something. We don’t hear Joey’s voice, but Alma’s dialogue confirms what he’s telling her: there’s been another “attack” in Philly. Most of the rest of the train gets this info about the same time. Julian pulls out his cell and tries to call his wife, but he can’t hear her over the noise, so he shouts to her to text him. Marky notes that the attack happened in another park, and we learn that Julian’s wife has made it out of town and is on a bus to Princeton, New Jersey. Marky goes back to yak with Alma, who reveals she’s heard that Boston got a hit. We also reveal, once again, that Zooey Deschanel and Mark Wahlberg are putting very little effort into their performances. The acting in this movie is very, very consistent. I think I’ll reserve my comments (except for a highlight here and there) for the Afterthoughts.
The train stops at a little town called Filbert, (which is supposedly south of Pittsburgh, even though that’s nearly 200 miles west of Harrisburg, their destination) and the conductors order everyone off. Marky goes to ask the conductors why they’ve stopped, and both dialogue and performance from Wahlberg are particularly bad here. If someone came up to me acting like this guy did, I’d tell him to buzz off. The conductors roll their eyes and tell Marky that “We lost contact... with everyone.” Um, yeah, right. We’ll learn later on that these attacks have only hit the Northeast: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and the New England states. So, um, wouldn’t these guys be able to reach someone west or south of there? Not here. BNSS. Marky goes back to the others, confirming that they’re stuck here. Jess is understandably scared, but Marky tries to reassure her that nothing will happen to them here in a small town. Uh huh, I’m real confident there, Marky. Do I see the Grim Reaper standing there in the background?
Everyone goes to a nearby diner, leading me to wonder if this is a violation of the diner’s fire codes. Julian and Alma go to get grub, leading Marky Mark to try and ingratiate himself to little Jess. Marky is very insincere in this bit, and Night makes a point of calling attention to his mood ring yet again. At one point, Marky says that the ring can predict when one is about to laugh. I suspect it would be going haywire in the presence of the audiences in the theaters about now. None of the laughs are intentional; The Happening is meant to be a very dour, humorless exercise. I caught one, count ’em, one attempt at a joke earlier, and it was pretty lame. But it is funny, as the next bit will demonstrate.
The lady sitting next to Wahlberg gasps and shows him a video file her sister sent on the cell phone. The video shows a man climbing into the lion cage at the Philadelphia Zoo, doing a lion-tamer bit without whip and chair, then calmly standing there as Simba makes a meal of the guy’s arms. At this point, I couldn’t help myself: I yelled, ”’Tis but a flesh wound!!!” (Go ahead and highlight it if you can’t guess what I said, but if you have to, you should really bone up on your movie quotes. Actually, Dad had never seen that movie, but he laughed at this anyway.)* By this time, we were both laughing like a couple of eight-year olds at this crap.
*[Once again, Shyamalan showed a rare bit of insight. He had originally thrown in two video sequences, the other one being at a music recital. If at all possible, that sequence was even more laughable than the lion cage bit. Oh, and once again, what are people doing at a recital or at the zoo if they know the whole damn city is being evacuated?! And while we’re at it, how did the videographer of the lion cage bit keep from going nuts— Aw hell, forget it. Considering the holes already in the movie’s plot, it’s not like this is a big thing.]
We fade to later on; one shot of a clock will reveal it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon. Everyone’s still crowding in the diner watching the news. The attacks are spread out all over the Northeast, and smaller and smaller towns are getting hit. It’s pretty obvious by now that it’s no terrorist attack. Oh, and Our Heroes are right in the middle of it all. With that, the power goes out, and the crowd panics and runs to their cars. Actually, that makes sense. The best idea here would be to Go West, Young Man, Go West. They pile out, and somehow, everyone who was on board the train is able to flag down a car and get a ride... except for Our Heroes. Alma marvels at “how crappy people are,” not noticing that 90% of the people here were willing to help others. Whiny brat. And to prove just how whiny she is, a man and wife pull up and offer them a ride. The guy runs a plant nursery nearby; he wants to stop there for a few minutes to pack up, then they plan to get movin’. Julian’s not going, though; he’s got a ride to Princeton, and he’s gonna try and find his wife. He hands off Jess to Our Heroes, and we have a supposed heart-tugging moment where he says goodbye to his daughter, then he jumps into his new friends’ Jeep and takes off.* Um, right, Julian. Okay, let’s see. We know that larger towns have been hit, and Princeton is on the way back to New York. And even if your wife is okay, it won’t be easy to find her, even in a town of about 30,000. The logical — and responsible — thing to do would be to stick to your daughter like glue. Wait, I forgot. Logical and responsible behavior will be largely absent from this movie. Never mind, carry on. But I do believe that Julian won’t be long for the world now.
*[I forgot to mention this, but Julian has indeed made a few lame math geek comments, and he makes another one here. This is what passes for character development in a Shyamalan script these days. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.]
At this point, Dad started to wonder how much this movie cost to make, imagining the budget must have been very low. I knew the cost figures, but I decided to keep them to myself; it would be more fun to spring them on him after the movie was over.
Our Heroes go with Plant Nursery Guy and his wife to their home, and we see two big smokestacks from a nuke-u-lar power plant in the distance. Truly, this movie’s subtlety is impressive, yes? By the way, if the power had been shut down, would the smokestacks still belch up steam? Wouldn’t someone want to shut down a nuclear power plant if there was the slightest hint of a terrorist attack? Or whatever this thing is? Anyway, Our Heroes take a look around the greenhouse while PNG and his wife pack up. PNG comes into the greenhouse and makes a very weird bit of small talk that convinces me that Shyamalan has now lost the ability to write good dialogue. PNG has also come up with a theory of what’s causing all of this: “It’s the plants. They can release chemicals.... Plants react to human stimulus [sic]. They proved it in tests.” His other dialogue and actions prompt Alma to make a whirling screw-loose gesture, but of course, PNG will be proven to be exactly right. BNSS.
And now we go back to Julian, who is now riding along in the Jeep of Doom. Since we’re going in sequence, and not jumping back and forth in time, we have yet another problem. Julian and his lunchmeat friends are entering Princeton. Remember, they started out south of Pittsburgh, meaning they they had to travel at least 200 miles to get to Princeton. So, if they started out around 2:30, it would be (at least) 5:30 now. At the very latest, sunset will be around 7:30 (assuming this is late summer; if it was mid-summer, school would be out). There’s a lot of stuff that’s gonna happen betwen now and sundown, and there’s no way you could convince me that it will all happen in the space of less than two hours.
Anyway, they enter Princeton, to see that the sidewalks and streets are line with bodies. They quickly move to make sure that the vents and windows are sealed up. Julian does his math-geek schtick again, then.... Bum bum BUM! He looks up and sees a tear in the Jeep’s roof. I do believe he’ll be dead in about one minute. And with that, the driver puts the pedal to the metal and rams the Jeep into a tree. Everyone is thrown out the windshield to their deaths, except for Julian, which is impressive, considering he was in the front passenger seat.* Julian, now crazy gassed, gets out, walks onto the road, sits down, picks up what looks like a piece of glass from the windshield (which, impressively, managed to teleport several yards behind the Jeep) and slashes his wrists.
*[Another feature on the DVD revealed that Shyamalan was trying to misdirect the audience, making them think that the Jeep driver was trying to speed away from the gas, and only revealing at the end that he was planning to ram the tree. It says something about how badly this movie fails that this attempt at surprise fails completely; I knew what the guy was doing in an instant.]
I was close: it was about a minute and twenty seconds. And lucky John Leguizamo! Since his character has been offed, he gets to get the hell out of this movie, thirty-four minutes in. |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 11/13/2008 : 1:34:46 PM
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Back to Our Heroes, who are driving along with PNG and his wife. Uh oh, them’s bodies up ahead! So, they turn around and try to find a better route. (This bit takes much longer than is really necessary). Eventually, they come to a crossroads, just as an Army jeep comes in from another direction. The jeep stops, and a private jumps out, runs over, and gives some Basil Exposition about how his base was hit by the crazy-gas. Yes, the acting is bad, and the dialogue is clunky. As they’re mulling over what their next move will be, another car comes in from another direction. Then another and another. Pretty soon, it’s clear that all roads lead to gassed areas; Our Heroes are stuck in the middle. (Gives new meaning to “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,” don’t it? Hey, is that Michael Madsen with a razor?) Marky Mark catches sight of Alma’s cell and spots Joey’s name. Oh, Lord, are we really gonna go into this? (Future Brad: of course we are.)
Marky notes that all the attacks started in city parks and starts to wonder if PNG was onto something with that little pet theory of his about the plants. Soldier Boy, being the only military guy, quickly convinces the crowd to stay here and hunker down until they can figure out their next move.
In the next scene, PNG goes to Marky and informs him that one lady in the crowd is on the phone with her daughter in Princeton. The lady is in her early forties, so one can assume her daughter is in her late teens, in high school or college. We only get the lady’s point of view as she tries to get her daughter to tell her what’s going on in Princeton. The daughter confirms everyone’s fears: anyone outdoors in Princeton is already dead. And then the daughter starts talking nonsense. Bum bum BUM! I do believe she got some crazy-gas in her. The mother panics, holding out the cell phone for the others to hear. The daughter rambles incoherently for a few seconds, then we hear (I assume) the sound of her jumping out a window to her death.
This scene is impressive, in a way. Usually, something like this would be horror-movie gold, a can’t-miss scene. Give the audience just enough info to let their minds imagine the worst, and tighten the thumbscrews. The impressive thing about this scene is that it fails completely. I wasn’t the least bit moved by this, and was more put off by a sense of glee on Night’s part in doing this.
Marky goes to sit apart from the crowd, and Jess goes to him, in a long shot. Alma watches on, glassy-eyed. We can figure out that Marky is confirming to Jess that her parents are dead, and Jess falls into his arms. At long last, a halfway-competent moment in the movie... forty minutes in.
We have an abrupt transition to a short time later. Alma is in the back of PNG’s car, asleep. PNG gives more clunky expo, spouting his belief and the movie’s premise that these plants are intelligent enough to communicate with each other and coordinate an attack like this against humans. I might have bought this premise, maybe, if the movie had done a better job of selling it. About this point, Dad started to wonder if Mark Wahlberg took the part because he needed the money.
Soldier Boy gets with Marky, and they note that the attacks started in big cities, then moved to smaller towns, and are moving to smaller populations. Soldier Boy reasons that whatever this is, it might still be man-made, and it would be a good idea to get away from the roads. For now, Marky agrees. So, Soldier Boy gathers the crowd and tells them that the best idea is to go to an area with as few people as possible. He brings in a local realtor, who just so happens to be in the group, and the realtor confirms that there’s a sparsely populated area not too far away. So the plan is to go in groups to this area and try and wait this thing out. Soldier Boy reminds the crowd to split into two groups and to stay in the groups.
So, Our Heroes split into a smaller group, away from the larger group. It’ll turn out they were right to do so, BNSS, but here they have no real reason for going off on their own. PNG and his wife are with the larger group.
Alma tells Marky about Joey — all five seconds’ worth — and Marky is shocked, I tell you, shocked! I couldn’t hold back the chuckles here. Actually, the expression on Mark Wahlberg’s face isn’t one of shock; it’s more the look of someone who needs a lot of Metamucil. (And if he does, he’ll probably be able to pass this movie out. Yes, I know how gross that is, but I gots to entertain myself SOMEHOW while watching this stupid thing.)
The larger group is making their way, when PNG notices a gust of wind heading this way. The crowd starts to freeze up, and Soldier Boy starts barking out a poor-man’s version of the “This is my rifle” bit from Full Metal Jacket. I wouldn’t be surprised here if Stanley Kubrick rose from the grave and went to clobber Shyamalan, with Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, and Vincent D’Onofrio tagging along. Of course, PNG and his wife aren’t affected, at least not yet. Huuuuuuggggghhhhnnnnn! We have some “spooky” shots of the wind picking up in the trees and the tall grass, then Soldier Boy pulls out his sidearm. PNG and his wife clasp hands, knowing the end is near.
The smaller groups, with Our Heroes, hear the larger crowd playing pass the-handgun again, though they’re over a hill and out of sight. Remember, that crowd had at least a couple dozen people, and the gun contains 12 or 15 bullets, at most. Never mind, it’s enough to do the crowd in. BNSS. For some reason, everyone in the small group turns to Marky Mark as their leader! Hmmmmm, why not that realtor, who is part of this small group? Or anyone, for that matter? Marky has shown no leadership skills to this group, or to anyone else in the movie, for that matter. Nebbermind, Night says they turn to him, so they turn to him and ask him what to do, even though he clearly would have trouble deciding on what shirt to wear to a nude beach. Alma is all for going back and doing something to prevent the killing, never mind that most of it’s already done. The others start to follow her lead as Marky applies his poor man’s scientific method and magically intuits, hark, it’s the plants! They’re going after smaller groups! So we need to make the groups even smaller! That’s right, they’re following the Scooby-Doo handbook: it’s time to split up. Uh oh! Bum bum BUM! Here comes the wind! And so, yes, Our Heroes break up into smaller groups and run like hell from... the wind. Note that the free clip from Rifftrax is this scene, and the guys nailed it: you know something is very wrong with your movie when you’re a full-budget Hollywood production, and your big monster effect is an industrial fan! (Hitchcock might have been able to pull this off. Maybe. M. Night Shyamalan is no Hitchcock. I wonder if anyone in the theater yelled “Who farted?!” during this scene.) We never learn what happens to the other groups when they all split up; we stay with Marky, Alma, Jess, and two 14-year-old kids named Josh and Jared. I’m gonna call them White Kid and Black Kid, because we barely hear their names, and they don’t get any real personality to work with. (By the way, White Kid is played by Spencer Breslin, Abigail Breslin’s older brother.)
Ahyway, Our Heroes run their little tails off, but uh oh, the wind overtakes them! For some reason, however, it doesn’t affect them. It seems their group is down to a “safe” size. Uh huh. Let’s see. Gas drives bigger crowd to start playing with firearms, wind carries gas over hill, but when it reaches the other crowds, nothing happens. Never mind that the same thing happened to the construction workers at the beginning; the only way for the gas to reach them was by wind, and it was potent as ever when it hit them. Maybe Shyamalan thought the viewers had very short attention spans.
Our Heroes get to runnin’, and presently see a parked truck up ahead (and they got pretty close to it before noticing it). Marky goes to investigate, telling the others to hang back. The truck has a logo on its side for “Clear Hill Community.” More subtlety. Thanks, Manoj. Anyway, Marky sees that the keys are still on the ignition, and he turns on the radio to hear a woman on a talk show spouting off a theory that the local nuclear power plants are somehow causing this weird, uh, happening. Ummmmmm, yeah, right, whatever you say, sister. By the way, the woman sounds like a poor caricature of Tammy Bruce.* This bit gets us absolutely nowhere, but it does kill a minute or so of running time. Note that Marky does not get everyone into the truck and try to drive out of there. (Maybe he can’t drive stick. But then, neither can I, and if I were in this situation, I’d learn. Fast. And maybe the truck was, say, out of gas. But they don’t show this by having an insert of the gas gauge. No, this was done solely to kill time.) Instead, he notices a large house not too far away, which isn’t really any trick: the house was visible from the spot where the rest of Our Heroes are parked.
*[Kinda sidetracking here, and it’s a bit political, but I can’t help but liking Tammy Bruce. Let’s see. She was kicked out of NOW for calling its leaders onto the carpet for being PC chickensh!ts (and rightly so) during the O. J. Simpson trial. She is a staunch feminist and open lesbian who (horrors!!!) supported John McCain and Sarah Palin. Dang. She’s a left winger’s worst nightmare, yes? Hee hee hee.]
In the next scene, Our Heroes are already inside the house, in a study. The books are mock-ups placed on the shelves, and there’s something off about the place. We don’t see the two boys, but our main three heroes are in the room. There’s a convenient map here, and Alma and Marky Mark go through yet another back-and-forth about what’s going on. Okay, Night! We get it! Man has spoiled the Earth and threatened the plants, and the plants are fighting back! We got the point a half hour ago, thank you! Marky says they need to go to an unpopulated area to be safe, forgetting that they’ve already been trying to do this for the last ten minutes of screen time. Alma tells Marky she’s gonna try and find a bathroom for Jess. (What, you can’t find a bush somewhere?) For a moment, Marky stands alone in the study. Uh oh, Bum bum BUM! There’s a potted tree in the far corner of the room. This was supposed to be a scare scene, but I started chuckling again. I figured, all they need now is for Marky Mark to start talking to the tree, begging it not to hurt them, promising they won’t be any trouble—
Oh.
My.
God.
In.
Heaven.
Yes. They did this for real. I swear I’m not making that up. I can imagine the theatrical audience losing it about here. If the movie hadn’t run off the rails by this point, this would be the capper. Then they try to make a joke, having Marky realize that the plant is plastic. The problem is, the joke is lame, and the viewer has already been laughing for nearly a full minute at the “serious” part of this scene.
We go to the kitchen, where White Kid and Black Kid are hanging out. There’s food on the table, but WK and BK note that it’s fake. It didn’t take me more than three seconds to figure it out: it’s a model home. Okay, no problem. Well, actually, there is a problem: BK has no idea why the door was unlocked and why the food, books, and TV are all fake. Um, Night, if there’s one thing worse than an Idiot Plot, it’s a moment where a character has shown normal intelligence up to now seems to act like he has an IQ smaller than my belt size. Marky goes into the dining room and sits at the table, and tries to play poor-man’s science teacher to WK, giving more redundant expo, and eating up another minute or so of screen time. Then Marky absently picks up a wine glass to take a drink, and realizes that it, too, is fake. Finally! A joke! A joke that works! No, it didn’t get a big laugh from me, but I’ll admit to smiling at it. Considering this movie’s track record, that’s a major achievement. Oh, and they give a hint of what is to come: Marky has a theory that these, um, gas attacks will get worse and worse, and then drop off suddenly. “We just have to be alive when it’s over.” How did he come by that theory? BNSS, of course.
They go outside, and we see a sign reading “Model Home” shown prominently in the front yard. And I do mean prominently. Night was sure to shove that sign in our faces, because he assumed the viewers are just as dumb as BK was inside, never mind that we all guessed what kind of house this was two minutes ago. Our Heroes see a group of people heading this way. Figuring that a larger group can only mean them leafy buggers will fart out another dose of the goofy-gas, Our Heroes decide to beat feet. It’s one of the few sensible things Our Heroes do in the whole movie.
Hey. Hold on. Didn’t that realtor guy say this area wasn’t densely populated? Um, I think that if a new subdivision was being built, there’d be some people around— Oh, the hell with it, let’s get through this mess. We’re well past the halfway mark here.
So Our Heroes haul ass up a hill, then look back to see that group of people gather just outside the new houses. Uh oh, Bum Bum BUM! The people (can you guess?) are freezing in their tracks. The plants did indeed, fart. Well, the prudent choice for Our Heroes would be to get the hell out of there. But Marky lingers and watches, cuz we need a bit of the old ultra-violence to make this a real R-rated horror show, my droogies. One of the group goes to a big industrial lawnmower and cranks it up, then lies down in front of it. And yes, we’re treated to a lovely display of the mower rolling over the guy and chomping him up, a spray of blood going everywhere.
No, I wasn’t the least bit shocked, disturbed, or grossed out by this. I was fighting yet another attack of the gigglesnorts. Seriously, this looks like something you’d see happening to Wile E. or Sylvester; did Shyamalan get his ideas from watching old Warner Brothers cartoons? But the real laugh hit me when I asked myself if Manoj actually thought he was stepping into Saw territory with this crap. (I’ve only seen — and hated — the first Saw movie. And don’t get me started on the horrid genre of torture porn. But at least they have one idea right: if you’re gonna do something like this, go in full speed; don’t go in half-assed. Night goes in half-assed.)
Our Heroes, having watched the fun, get moving, passing a big billboard advertising the new subdivision. On top of the billboard is a banner stating, “You DESERVE this!” Ooooooooh, Night, you’re being much too subtle! Don’t you know that those plebs in the audience need to HAVE IT BEATEN INTO THEIR HEADS BY A TWO-BY-FOUR, SPELLING EVERYTHING OUT IN BOLD RED CAPITAL LETTERS LIKE THIS?!?!
Jerk.
We go to some time later. Our Heroes walk along the dirt road, and for no good reason (other than BNSS), WK and BK start asking Marky about his marital problems. Oh, not this crap again. Oh, and yes, the movie points out for at least the third or fourth time that Marky’s little mood ring is important to him. BK’s dialogue here is the dialogue of a grown man, not the dialogue of a 14-year-old, and really not the dialogue of a 14 year-old who was too dumb to figure out what a model home was a short while ago. And I’ll ask again, considering everything that’s going on, would anyone be worried about Marky’s problems with Alma?
They spot a house in the distance, and Alma proposes that they go there and take a quick rest. She also notes that Jess is getting hungry (although it was implied they ate a short while before leaving the road, maybe an hour or two ago). Um, actually, if Jess was hungry, everyone else would probably— Aw, just go with it. Marky goes into a long, very strange jibe at Alma, then passes it off as a joke to get her mind off things... and to pad another minute or two to the running time. If you’re saying, “For an 82 minute movie, this thing has an awful lot of padding,” well, you’re right.
They get to the house, which is all boarded up. WK and BK propose that they just kick the door in, reasoning that the house may have been abandoned for some time. Okay, let’s put this together. (1) They think the house has been abandoned for a long time. (2) They’re supposedly looking for food. Is there anyone here who can’t see the hole here? If so, get to the nearest institution. Now. Anyhoo, they realizes that someone’s inside; they peer through the shutters over the windows and see shadows moving around. (Quick side trip. There are a few shots where Jess plays on a swing attached to a tree branch. Ummmmm, yeah, never mind that Jess wouldn’t be in a playful mood right now. For once, Marky Mark is absolutely right: playing near a tree isn’t a good idea, all things considered. She only swings for a few seconds, making sure to rejoin Our Hero for the main action on this house’s porch.) The guy inside tells them to take a hike; he’s not gonna let them in and take a chance of letting the goofy-gas in as well. Marky tries to convince the guy that it’s safe and that they’re not crazy. Problem is, I can understand the guy’s nervousness. So, Marky and the Funky Bunch decide to play it safe and try to find somewhere else to hole up— WHONK! Wrong! They hang around, making lame attempts to convince the guy inside that they’re okay and the air is fine. Marky’s behavior would be enough to convince me he’d gone completely bonzo. He finally realizes it’s best to get underway, and it’s at this point that WK starts talking smack to the guy inside and trying to kick the door in. Ah, yes, the Idiot Plot rears its ugly head. And I do believe at least one of the two tagalongs will be headed to that great Z-movie set in the sky within a minute or so. Marky tells WK to knock it off and get moving, but WK doesn’t listen. The front door opens (apparently, the guy inside forgot he didn’t want to open the door!), a shotgun barrel pokes out, and the guy inside fires, blowing WK away. Everyone looks in shock. Then another rifle barrel pokes out a window and shoots BK through the head. There was an ugly, gratuitous feel to all of this. I can understand killing a kid in your story, if it’s an organic part of your tale (a la Alex Kintner in Jaws). But here, one senses real glee in the killing off of these two kids. Okay, they were annoying, but no more so than Our Zeroes.* The guy inside tells Our Zeroes to piss off before he decides to get really mean. At last, Our Zeroes do indeed get the hell out of there.
*[In the Special Features section of the DVD, an extended scene shows a more graphic shot of Black Kid getting cacked. It was indeed more gratuitous than what we have here. Shyamalan claims that they cut the scene to avoid an NC-17 rating. Right. Surely these guys don’t believe that, considering the level of violence in, say, The Passion of the Christ, Saving Private Ryan, (good movies) or any of those aforementioned torture porn things (not-so-good movies), this thing would be pushing any envelopes. I don’t know if Manoj was completely delusional by this time, or if he thought the audience would buy this line of bull. Either sounds plausible.]
Before getting to the final act, let me point something out. Mark Wahlberg’s character is incredibly passive. Others look to him as their leader over the course of this movie, even though he shows no leadership abilities whatsoever. His most common expression is deer-in-the headlights. Picking Mark Wahlberg to play Elliot (don’t worry; I’ll go back to calling him Marky Mark in a minute) was incredible miscasting. Wahlberg usually does well playing characters who, right or wrong, have the nerve to do something. His persona is that of someone who isn’t afraid to take charge, and it clashes mightily with the character he plays. Amazingly, M. Night Shyamalan wrote this part with Wahlberg in mind.
An interesting thing occurred to me while writing this. The Happening and Never Cry Wolf are apples and oranges. The one is a summer-blockbuster horror-thriller. The other was a risky prestige pic, and a quiet character study. But these films have two things in common. First, they make a statement in favor of being more responsible with the environment. Second, they have protagonists who have very passive natures. Setting aside the considerable gap in the quality of these films, one is struck by how Wolf handles these two aspects. First, it simply tells the story, not ramming any messages down the audience’s throat, and trusts the viewer to be able to work things out for him- or herself. Second, its hero is aware of, and frustrated by, his passive nature. Also, at the end, he does indeed take action. A small, quiet action, to be sure, but it’s there. (You could add a third difference: Never Cry Wolf — the serious one — is also the one smart enough to throw in quite a bit of humor.)
Actually, one could also Compare and Contrast The Happening with The Arrival. That movie was an unabashed B-movie, done with a little intelligence. It did preach a good bit, and its hero was played by (hock, spit) Charlie Sheen, but it had the sense to be what a good B-movie should always be. You know. Fun. |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 11/13/2008 : 1:35:41 PM
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We go to a montage of different people in different parts of the country, watching the same news reports. First up is a pair of old ladies in “Petersburg, West Virginia,” who watch the news while working on their knitting... and wearing gas masks. Hardy har. Night, you are so-o-o-o-o funny. Note that this scene is supposed to be a cheap laugh but the old ladies are close to the plant-fart zones, so wearing a gas mask would make sense! If two little old ladies had access to gas masks, that is.
The news report shows a talking-head scientist making the same prediction Marky Mark did: the gas attacks will reach their worst point early the next morning, then drop off to nothing. No, it’s never mentioned just how he came to this conclusion, other than BNSS. We see this part of the news report from a house in Florida, where several people, clearly not in the same family, crouch together in a bathtub. Hardy har.
Then the report goes on to add that some people are accusing the CIA of testing a new bio-weapon, and the CIA has met this accusation with silence, only riling up the conspeersee nuts even more. Never mind that this attack has (presumably) made 9/11 look mild by comparison, and is widespread. Not something Mr. CIA would be stupid enough to pull, never mind whether CIA folks are moral or not. Oh, and we see a militia group in Nebraska arming themselves while watching the report. Hardy har.
Finally, we go back to Our Zeroes, who amble along and come upon a two story house. Alma notes that the house doesn’t have any power lines going in (though it’s a bit of a presumption; they can’t see the back of the house from here). Marky states for the audience that the road looks like it hasn’t been used in a while. They figure the house is abandoned, even though it looks to be in good repair, and none of the windows are broken. Marky goes in to investigate.
He makes his way to the front porch, and any idiot could tell you that someone lives there: there are linens hanging out to dry a few yards away. Marky goes to the porch and fails to notice the old lady sitting in the rocking chair three feet away, until she gets his attention. Our hero is observant, no? The old lady (played by Betty Buckley) informs Marky (and the audience) that she lives alone here and there’s no one around for miles. The lady doesn’t seem to want him around, but it takes her five seconds to invite him and the rest of the Funky Bunch in. I do believe we will learn that this old lady is a wee bit crazy, gas or no gas.
At first, the old lady seems to be a very gracious host, taking them in and offering dinner, which Our Zeroes clearly enjoyed. They make small talk, and the old lady reveals that the house doesn’t have electricity, and there’s a springhouse outside that was used for hiding runaway slaves in the mid 1800’s. Oh, and she informs the audience that there’s a speaking tube running from the main house to the springhouse, and when people talk through the tube, “You can hear each other like your in the same room.” Thanks for the expo, lady.
We get some more filler as the old lady intuits that Marky and Alma are still lovebirds, and The Flame Is Still Alive. About this time, Jess reaches for another piece of cornbread, and the old lady slaps her hand pretty hard, sternly telling Jess, “Don’t take what’s not yours.” Not much of an indicator that she’s nuts, but Night Says So, so she’s nuts. We learn that the lady’s name is Mrs. Jones, and she grudgingly offers to let Our Zeroes stay in the guest room for the night. Note that they didn’t even ask for the room; this character is all over the place.* About this time, I joked to Dad that this lady should’ve been named Mrs. Bates, not Mrs. Jones, and there should’ve been a line about her making ends meet because her boy Norman brings her some money each month. Dad started cracking up.
*[The sad thing here is, I saw another Special Feature on the creation of this character. Mrs. Jones’s backstory wasn’t great, but it was decent enough. It was actually somewhat believable, and it made her look like an interesting character. It’s amazing just how badly Shyamalan took his own creation and tore it to pieces.]
Oh, and Mrs. Jones exposits that she is completely self-sufficient here, doing without power or a radio, growing her own food and sewing her own clothes. Dang, she’s a Renaissance woman, yes? Well, until she runs out of cloth to make her clothes, or until she has an injury or is very sick. She doesn’t keep in contact with the world outside, and when Marky tries to tell her what’s going on, she tells him to shut up. Being a complete wimp, Marky obeys her.
By this time, Dad was going to his kitchen to get a drink or pop some popcorn. He told me to go ahead and let the DVD run; he didn’t care if he missed part of it, and I didn’t blame him. I’d be tempted to stop it and try and find a decent movie to watch, but it was getting late. Besides, the movie had definitely acquired a good deal of train-wreck appeal. It was morbidly fascinating to watch a once-red-hot director destroy any credibility he had left, and we only have about fifteen minutes to go, not counting final credits.
The Funky Bunch retire to the guest room, and Jess conks out. Marky and Alma lay the groundwork for their Big Reconciliation which will take place at the end, because of course they still love each other yadda yadda yadda filler filler filler. Alma notes that she doesn’t like Mrs. Jones. Duh! She makes a reference to The Exorcist. Jeez, not even getting the right movie, eh, Jess? Oh, and Night, referencing GOOD horror movies does not make your movie any better. Marky Mark states that they need to just deal with her and stay here for as long as they can. They hear some creaking nearby, and turn to see Mrs. Jones in the hallway. Mrs. Jones accuses them of plotting to steal her stuff or kill her in her sleep! Sigh. Marky Mark decides to tell this lady to shut up and listen to him, because her life depends on it, whether she wants to know about the outside world or not— WHONK! Heh heh heh. Gotcha. Nope. He doesn’t do that. He just gives a wide-eyed “What? No!” which isn’t convincing, and Mrs. Jones— strike that, Mrs. Bates turns and goes back to her room.
Cut to early the next morning. Marky wakes up and goes downstairs. Alma and Jess are playing and giggling somewhere in the house (which doesn’t fit, considering the little girl knows her parents died fairly horrible deaths the afternoon before, and considering they both know what kind of danger they’re in. I know, I’ve said that already, but still). We have a minute of filler as Marky walks around the house, then he decides, BNSS, to look in on Mrs. Bates. He goes into her room to find (Bum bum BUM!) a life-sized doll on the bed. I was right to call her Mrs. Bates; seriously, this is one of the more blatant rip-offs of Psycho I’ve seen. It almost makes Gus Van Sant’s butchering of the (gag) remake look watchable. Almost. Uh oh! Mrs. Bates is standing right behind him. I started going “skree skree skree skree,” but no, she doesn’t attack Marky (damn). She accuses him of stealing her stuff again and yells at him to get out of her house. Marky hems and haws and bumbles, and I contemplate banging my head on the wall.
Seriously, this guy is a wuss. Ultimately, Tom Cruise’s character in War of the Worlds was almost as bad (one of the many reasons I loathed that movie). But at least he finally showed some balls and took action to protect his daughter near the end.
Anyway, Mrs. Bates storms out and goes to her garden. Marky follows her, sounding like a whiny brat as he tries to get her to calm down. Uh oh! Mrs. Bates is freezing up! Looks like the crazy-gas has gotten fine-tuned, and now it can attack individuals standing outside. There’s a long moment as Marky figures out the obvious, then bolts back inside the house and slams the door, as Night tries to build suspense again by having the wind pick up.
Marky tries to warn Alma and Jess to shut the windows and doors, but he can’t find them. Uh oh! Mrs. Bates is now skulking around outside. She starts banging her head on the wall outside, then puts her head through a window, and we get a lovely view of a shard of glass piercing her eye. (Actually, this is so ineptly done that even squeamish viewers could probably watch this scene with no trouble.) Mrs. Bates head-butts another window and (presumably) cuts her throat on the glass. This would be a creepy scene, except for one tiny thing.
Suspension of disbelief isn’t too hard to come by in the movies. We want to be entertained, we’ve already paid for the ticket, so we want it to be good. We let the filmmakers take us where they want to. All they need to do is be consistent!
We’ve been told time and again, ad nauseum, that these plants fart out a gas that turns the self-preservation part of the brain into a self-destruct switch. Okay, I can buy that. We’re told that the plants can coordinate an attack, communicating between species. Okay, I buy that. Or I might buy that, with a better script and director.
But now the plants somehow know someone is in the house and is using a person as a kamikaze to get the others! Shyamalan took the idea of consistency and pissed on it.
You know something? This movie is really, really, really, effing STUPID!!!
Marky hears Alma and Jess playing around, and he makes his way to a storage room. Ah so, this is the room with that speaking tube! Alma and Jess are in the springhouse! Marky warns the others to close the windows and doors, for the obvious reasons. They do this, but I’ve really gotten tired of the device of having Alma pause and look out the door before closing it. Just close the damn door, ya bimbo!
So, Marky’s isolated from Alma, but they can hear one another through the speaking tube. Of course, this is the point where they finally reconcile and declare their love for one another. Whutta surprise. At this point, Marky looks down at his mood ring, which has a gold color to it. It was noted earlier that gold meant that the wearer was about to laugh. I imagine Wahlberg had to fight that impulse quite a few times when mouthing his groan-worthy dialogue.
Amazingly, after this point, this bit isn’t all that painful. The talk revolves around the mood ring, which they reveal Elliot (I’ll give proper respect during the decent stuff) gave Alma on their first date. Kind of a let-down for all the time they devoted to this, but the dialogue following it is, while not great, at least decent. For about a minute and a half, at long last, the movie works! Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel actually put a little effort into their performances, the dialogue is decent enough to support them, and the photography is nicely moody, with good light and shadow effects. Note that I haven’t commented much at all on the acting or the photography so far. I’m saving that for the Afterthoughts, since the problems there run the length of this movie. But for ninety semi glorious seconds, we actually have a halfway decent scene.
Well, the decent part’s over. Time to jump back into the garbage. Elliot turns back into Marky Mark and says he doesn’t think they’re gonna make it out of this alive, but he wants to be with Alma and Jess when his time comes. Um, yeah, Marky, you know, you could try holding your breath for the one minute it’ll take to cross from the house to the springhouse. Also, if the goofy-gas hits you on your way over there, you’re gonna kill yourself. In short, you and Alma will NOT be together! You’ll breath in the plant fart, go nuts, and cack yourself long before you and your True Love are reunited! Dimwit.
The movie tries to milk as much, uh, suspense (and fill out running time) by having the part where Marky and Alma cross the field to meet take a full minute. Just a full minute of them walking. Hitchcock could make this work. Shyamalan can’t.
They meet halfway and clasp hands, and then.... Then we get a generic shot of the landscape, and a subtitle informs us it is “Arundell County, 9:58 AM.”
Aw hell no.
Our Zeroes go back into the house, looking around, glassy-eyed, then go back to (I presume) the springhouse and huddle up there. We get an exterior shot of the homestead, and Marky Mark dubs in a line of dialogue: “The event must have ended before we went out there.”
(long pause)
WTF?
WTF?!
W?!
T?!
F?!?!?!
Yes, my friends, this is indeed the ending! The plants’ goofy-gas attack.... ENDS!!! Signs threatened to have an ending like this, until Shyamalan revealed it was a false ending, giving us a real payoff a moment later. In my opinion, it worked so well that we didn’t care how ludicrous it was. Here, we don’t get that. The movie doesn’t really end; it sorta stops.
So, the main movie is over, now it’s time to go to the epilogue. We go to “Three Months Later.” Awwwwwww, how sweeeeeeet! Marky Mark and Alma have gotten back together. And Awwwwwwwww, how sweeeeeeet! They now Jess living with her, apparently working on adopting her, and she now calls Alma “Aunt Alma.” Um, didn’t Julian have other family that could’ve taken care of her? Oh, never mind, the movie has about three minutes left to go. Anyway, Alma tells the viewer that the school are opening up for the first time since Da Big Event, and she tucks a framed photo of Jess’s parents in her backpack (a wood and glass frame; right; what, they couldn’t make copies of the pic and give one to Jess?).
Marky walks Jess to the corner, waits for the school bus, and sees her off. Um, isn’t Marky a teacher? Wouldn’t he be going to school himself?
We go back inside Marky and Alma’s apartment to see a TV interview. A scientist of some sort is ranting and raving about what happened on that fateful day, how the plants were rebelling against man for his mistreatment of our planet. Thank you, Mad Scientist, and thank you Manoj; we didn’t figure that our for ourselves twenty minutes in, and we didn’t get it the first time you told us this outright. Or the second time. Or the third time. This scientist is way over the top; one can see how he wouldn’t get a lot of converts. We are reminded that the entire main part of the movie took place over 25 hours. The difference between this and the TV series 24 is that 24 is able to make people believe all that crap can take place in one day, thanks to strong writing, direction, and acting.
Anyway, the scientist believes this attack was “a warning to the people of Earth.” The interviewer notes that the attacks only occurred in the Northeastern United States, so this scientist’s theory sounds kinda shaky. The interviewer adds, “If it had happened in only one other place, we could all believe in what you’re saying.” Ah so, I do believe I knows how this movie’s gonna end, I does!
Alma sits in the bathroom, eating up screen time, and we finally learn what she’s waiting for: the results of a home pregnancy test. Awwwwwww, how sweeeeeeeeet! She’s got a bun in the oven! Marky and Alma went and made Little Marky or Alma. (Gag.) She goes outside to tell Marky the good news, and we dissolve to....
A park somewhere in France. A couple of buddies do a walk-and-talk, until one of the guys stops short and starts babbling. We hear a distant scream, as the other buddy looks around, wondering what’s going on. Why yes, it’s a near-exact repeat of the opening. Everyone around this lone guy freezes up, and we get a shot of a hedgerow against the skyline. Well, here we go again.
And with that, the movie fades out, and the title “A Film by M. Night Shyamalan” fades up, letting us know exactly who is responsible for this mess.
Dad was apologetic about picking this movie out. He’s picked winners and losers before, but he thought this was quite possibly the worst one he’d ever gotten from the store. I told him not to feel too bad about it; at least we got a few laughs. Then I sprung the punchline on him: I told him that the only truly scary thing about this movie was that it cost 57 million dollars to make. Dad’s jaw dropped at that.
With hindsight, that wasn’t the scariest thing about this movie.
The scariest thing is that someone actually ponied up that much green for this self-important piece of crap. |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 11/13/2008 : 1:38:23 PM
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Afterthoughts
I considered not having this section, since it would be fairly short, but I put it back in after realizing that it would be best to make a few blanket statements, rather than go over them time and again during the synopsis.
The Happening last 82 minutes, minus the opening and end credits. Even that short running time seems very, very padded. Its ideal length might be 45 to 51 minutes, as an episode of The Twilight Zone or The X-Files.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that, with all the lame effort put into this movie, one person can be blamed for its abysmal failure: Mark Wahlberg Zooey Deschanel James Newton Howard Tak Fujimoto M. Night Shyamalan!
Let me repeat: the guy has a very big ego, and it’s a fragile ego at that. He won’t let anyone touch one of his babies, even if his scripts need serious work. And something else about this movie told me that it was his bungling that destroyed it.
Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, and John Leguizamo may never be considered great actors (well, Deschanel may one day have a shot at that). But at worst, they are competent performers who can fill out characters pretty well. Betty Buckley is a well-respected stage actress. Tak Fujimoto is one of our better photographers, and James Newton Howard is one of the film world’s better composers.
No one, and I do mean no one, seemed to want to put much effort into this movie. I don’t remember seeing the filmmakers doing a lot of publicity for its opening, but one suspects they knew early on this thing was in trouble, on the evidence given on screen.
James Newton Howard’s score is by far the best thing about this movie. It has some eerie moments, and I did like the solo piano and violin that carried part of the end credits. He’s too professional to do a truly half assed job. But most of the score wasn’t very memorable. One wonders if Howard just put in enough effort to justify getting paid, then concentrated more on scoring The Dark Knight.
The rest of the cast and crew leaned on their shovel. The scene in the springhouse was the only exception; my following descriptions apply to everything we see up to that point.
Tak Fujimoto seemed to be bored by this job. He lit the nighttime scenes pretty well, but the daytime scenes fell flat. Literally. The lighting was flat and uninteresting, and Fujimoto didn’t seem to care about how the actors looked. Okay, maybe he was trying for a gritty look, using natural lighting. But this is a B-movie. Atmosphere is more important that realism here. And speaking of atmosphere.... There is none. Instead of danger, or suspense, or menace.... we get... trees. Trees.
Zooey Deschanel comes off worst here. Deschanel is quite beautiful, with a bit of sweet awkwardness to her face that makes her interesting. I remember one of the earliest shots of her at the piano in Bridge to Terabithia, letting the viewer know just why an eleven-year-old boy (or a 35-year-old man) could have a serious crush on her. But here, Deschanel looks doughy and frumpy. Being able to make Zooey Deschanel look plain is not something you want on your resumé.
But the most obvious underachievers in this movie, by far, are its actors. Take that one scene near the end out, and one can describe every single scene the same way: the acting is absolutely horrible. Leguizamo is flat and uninteresting, Deschanel sleepwalks*, Betty Buckley is very over-the-top. Everyone acts like they just read their dialogue for the first time twenty minutes ago.
*[Once again, Zooey Deschanel gets the short end. I know her best from the disappointing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (and she was by far the best thing about that film, and the flawed-but-moving Bridge. In both of those films, she was grounded, vulnerable, and playful, all at the same time. Every bit of that is buried here.]
And then there’s Mark Wahlberg. Oh ye Gods. Wahlberg’s performance in this movie defies description. He’s a shoo-in for this years Razzie (and I hope for his sake that he shows up at the ceremony, accepts the award, and says he wouldn’t be there without his director). Seriously the best way to appreciate just how badly he blows it is by renting the movie and watching it. And I do recommend you do so. Ideally, you should invite some friends over, get the beer and popcorn ready, and see if you can give the Rifftrax guys a run for their money.
Don’t even get me started on the day players who had small parts.
Now, I don’t want to belittle any of these people. All of them are competent (and many of them are far more than competent) when they have a good script and director.
And that leads us back to the source. Shyamalan. I have no qualms about slamming this guy against the wall, since he clearly hasn’t learned from his mistakes. It was his script and his direction that doom this movie. What might have been an okay time-killer turns into a snoozefest (or a laughfest), and it’s due to his screw-ups.
Even at his best, Shyamalan’s films had flaws. He had little slips here and there in The Sixth Sense, and he showed real problems directing actors in small roles in Signs. But those films were good enough for the viewer to forgive small gaffes. Also, at the time, he could get good, low-key performances from his actors, give some really good atmosphere for the film to inhabit, and point up the humor that arises naturally from tense situations.
All of his strengths seem to have disappeared. And all of the problems have been magnified.
It’s possible that Night realized he’d directed a bomb late in the game, and went into desperation mode, selling the thing as a B-movie. The problem is that The Happening doesn’t feel like its makers were going for a B movie. It is thuddengly heavy-handed and serious. There is very, very little humor in it. Can you imagine how much better it would have been if even, say, at the beginning, they had given the audience a morbid chuckle by playing “Don’t Fear the Reaper” during the early attacks? (Okay, it’s a cliché, and the song really needs more cowbell. But you can probably find another song that would work as well.) Can you imagine what Hitchcock, or for that matter John Carpenter or Sam Raimi, might have done with this?
This feels less like a movie and more like a screed from a crackpot that Earth First would be nervous around. Besides, B-movies are supposed to be, you know, fun! Shyamalan seems to have forgotten that.
Some time ago, I remember reading a post that Ken Begg made, noting that Michael Crichton had two phases in his career. First, there was the phase where people saw one of his books or movies was coming out and said, “Hey! Michael Crichton! This should be pretty good!” Then there was the phase where people started saying, “Oh, not him again!”
I don’t want to speak ill of the recently departed (rest in peace, big guy), so let me point something out in Crichton’s defense. He was in that first phase for about thirty years. It was only in the last eight years or so of his career that he slipped into the second.
Shyamalan has slipped into that hole, too. But it took him only seven years to go from one end of the spectrum to the other (if you hated The Village, make it five years).
He’s in serious trouble. Twentieth Century Fox only put up half the money to make this thing; Shyamalan had to go to UTV, an Indian distributor, to get the other half. The Happening grossed about $150 million worldwide, meaning it probably broke even, if its advertising budget wasn’t too high.
So, Fox and UTV probably didn’t lose their shirts over this. But I guarantee you that Shyamalan’s trouble reputation took a haymaker for this debacle. Anywhere outside of Hollywood, if you screwed up so badly twice in a row, you’d be finished. But Night is slated to direct Avatar: The Last Airbender. So, he hasn’t gone the way of Michael Cimino. Yet.
He’d better start praying. And he’d better put as much money into safe accounts, pronto. Because if Avatar is another clunker, then I predict that M. Night Shyamalan, once considered to be the next Spielberg, will find that his career is dead in the water. |
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The Happening
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