Movie Review: The Happening

Ever since I saw the EXTREMELY powerful trailer for this movie, I was convinced it would be the panic movie to end all panic movies.
Perhaps a re-telling of the book of Revelation?
A gigantic bio-terrorist attack on North America?
A UFO causing chaos and disorder on planet earth?
Who knew? I was just dying to see it.
Turns out - M. Night Shyamalan made what is possibly the worst film I have ever seen. This is not to say it is "bad".
It joins the ranks of other "so bad it's ridiculous" movies like Poetic Justice, Higher Learning and Stephen King's Dream Catchers.
It's bad in a "They can't REALLY be fucking SERIOUS, can they??" kind of way.
It's bad in a "Seriously...who green lit this movie..?" kind of way.
In fact - it was so bad - it almost makes me wonder if M. Night Shyamalan did it on purpose, bitter at the progressively shittier reviews all his movies have been getting and finally decided to give us all something to SERIOUSLY bitch about.
This flick is a big "Fuck you" of a film, in fact - several times - you can almost HEAR the actors dying.

Basically - it's scene after scene after scene of groups of people doing normal, everyday things. All of a sudden, they start talking nonsensical...but with the horrific dialogue, it is seriously hard to decipher when this is - and then they look for the most convenient way to off themselves - like, say - allowing yourself to be attacked by a lion.
Laying down in path of a lawn mower.
Or just flat out bashing your head through the wall.
The zany adventure follows the travels of two wacky scientists - Mark Wahlberg and John Leguizamo and one really annoying twit played by a usually cute and charming Zooey Deschanel, who kept going on and on about how she ate ice cream with some guy.
Looking back - this is pretty much ALL she does through the entire movie.
Her role is almost completely pointless, she doesn't really do much of anything at all.
John Leguizamo doesn't shut up about math equasions the entire movie (even his final moment before offing himself is spent trying to figure out one of those annoying word problems from grade 7) and the most notable aspect about his on screen presence is his noticeably yellow front tooth. Why?
Fuck it - why not?
Mark Wahlberg on the other hand, is constantly telling everyone: "It's okay...I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher!" and sorting through formulas and theories, conjuring up ridiculously off-the-wall hypotheticals and calculating out what X would equal if Y was the square root of bullshit.
His facial expressions alone are priceless - the direction is MORE than noticeably bad - and the attempts at humour are so pathetic - that they actually end up being FUNNY!
Oh..and the mass panic? There is none.
Oh sure - the news is out that the world is ending, more or less, but that's it.
School is let out - but it's just like any other day. "Cool...we get to go home! SWEEET!"
There's no looting. No rioting. No end of days DISASTER.
It's like the public thinks "Huh. Weird."
I know M. Night Shyamalan is known for his scooby-doo endings - where he dupes the entire audience by pulling out some random "surprise" in the final moments of the movie and tying everything together, even if it is a loosely tied knot (see The Village, Unbreakable and Lady in the Water).
This time - it was almost as if he couldn't think of a witty ending, so he just said: "Fuck it, roll the credits!" and it ends.
When the cast is NOT running through a field in fierce winds - or searching for creative ways to kill themselves, they are talking about useless jibberish - including "hot dogs", tiramisu, high school boys with pretty faces and mood rings.
Yes, Mark Wahlberg wears a mood ring.
Why? Doesn't really matter and they don't explain it. But they point it out a few times that yes - he is in fact wearing a mood ring.
While I can't say it was the best 6 dollar movie ticket I ever spent - I do plan on renting this one again, even if only to laugh at it, scratching my head...wondering if a movie this stupid wasn't made on purpose...

Hmm...

My rating - as a thought-provoking end-of-days panic movie the trailer promised - I give this movie a ZERO out of Five.
As an excercise in shittiness - this movie deserves a 10 out of 10. A tour de force on the director's part. An example of a shitty idea made even SHITTIER through bad direction and zero imagination.