We’ve Sensed It. We’ve Seen The Signs. Now, It’s Happening…And It’s A Bloodbath
M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening opens this Friday, the 13th and the reviews are pouring in like a sewer line break. Confirming our suspicions, it seems to be a horrible, vile, noxious piece of crap. Real quick, here’s the plot: Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel flee from a natural disaster that is causing people to kill themselves violently for no reason. The movie is set in Philadelphia and follows Wahlberg and his family as they evacuate the city. Well, the reviews so far are pretty brutal. First up, the Defamer weighs in:
The film fails in every respect, but it’s also really, really boring. The conflict follows such a simple outline and the plot structure dissipates after a few minutes, and you’re left with a bunch of people on the road fleeing an invisible force for the rest of the running time: Little Miss Sunshine as a horror film. It’s bad, but not even ambitious enough for viewers to enjoy the stinking muck.
OUCH, big time. Most critics are giving M. Night grief for not bringing it like he has in the past. Blogcritics sniffs:
The Happening is the third bad Shyamalan movie in a row, succeeding The Village and Lady in the Water, and this is the worst of the three.
But it is not just M. Night, oh no. Even Mark Wahlberg isn’t immune from the critics’ damning:
Mark Wahlberg as a worry wort high school teacher with the weight of the world on his shoulders, mopes his way through the movie like he’s already succumbed to the DOA script. [NewsBlaze]
Oh well, at least The Incredible Hulk movie is coming out the same day. Edward Norton is kinda sexy, right? *Clears throat, tugs at collar and looks to both sides of the room nervously*
June 11th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Are there any TV watchers out there who can confirm if any of the cast is doing the TV junket circuit? Looks like Fox caved and finally had some press screenings, which I think is what they had to do since the only “alternative” marketing I’ve heard was when M. Knight came close to boring Ira Flatow to death on NPR’s Science Friday last week with his “science mysticism.” Just wondering if the cast found some way to walk out of any promotional duties and just walk away from it. I think even SciFi.com could only pull a quote from John Leguizamo.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I’ll tell what’s not happening, me seeing this movie! Hahahahahaha. (Typed while possessed by the ghost of Rex Reed).
June 12th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
What happened to M. Night??? “Sixth Sense” had him in the company of Alfred Hitchcock. Now he’s like worse than Ed Wood. His agent needs to seriously sit him down for a reality check . . .
June 12th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I really wanted this to be good too. I feel like someone else should write the dialog and let him stick to the story.
The directing, even in his bad movies, is good. It’s the talking and what have you that sucks.
damn.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I still believe in M. Night and I liked THE VILLAGE a lot. Lady in the Water… umm… it had moments. OK, it stunk. It was so cheap. The whole “keep asking the crazy mom” thing was played in like 30 seconds.
But HULK will SMASH!