What’s happening with “The Happening?”
That’s my attempt at serious dialogue, but you can tell it
came off a little flat or at least humorously awful – as was the case with most
dialogue in M. Night Shyamelon’s 2008 attempt at a horror film.
Mind you, I watched the edited-for-TV version of the movie,
so maybe the gore really pushed it to “Saw”-like gross-out levels, but my guess
is that it just makes the film even more ridiculous.
The plot revolves around plants that have evolved to kill of
humans. The plants release some form of poisonous toxin – carried by the wind –
that causes people to stop where they’re standing like mindless zombies,
eventually resorting to suicide.
Mark Whalberg stars as high school teacher dealing with
marital or relationship problems with his manic-pixie-dream-girl Zooey Deschanel.
Whalberg is hilariously wooden, coming off whiny and
childish whenever people turn to him for leadership, begging the question of
why anyone in the Funk Bunch would to Marky Mark for advice.
There are ridiculous deaths galore, but unfortunately
Whalberg and Deschanel are not among them.
And for every person who lays down in front a lawmower only
to be chopped to bits seconds later or flocks of construction workers who hurl
themselves off of buildings, I actually craved more wacky, over-the-top deaths.
Anything is better than Shamanlan’s constant wide shots of shrubbery menacingly
being blown by the wind. Anything.
I think Mark and Zooey work it out and they even pick up a
kid somewhere (but I’m like you can’t just jump into these things. You should
gotten a dog first and saw how it went).
Like I said the two most insufferable people on the plant
end up surviving and I’m left questioning why we’re even bothering to with all
this Green talk when plants are just gunna turn around and kill us anyway.
Overwhelming Al Gore/10 (take it as you will).
