MovieChat Forums > The Happening (2008) Discussion > Finally, i watched this film and was sur...

Finally, i watched this film and was surprised

posted 10 years ago by Akhi1
22 replies | jump to latest

First of all, this is only my personal opinion and haters please don't spam here(slipping out of the discussion)

Seriously, this movie isn't that bad as mentioned on these boards...for those who haven't watched this movie yet, if you liked other Night Shyamalan movies, just ignore the rating or reviews you find here in imdb and go give it a try.

You don't expect miracles from Night Shyamalan(like that of "Sixth Sense") every time....but, the mood generated by this film is as engaging as his(director) other works and there is no way you get bored at any point of time.
The concept was too small for a movie and still he's managed to give a solid 105 minutes of tension and carried decent momentum throughout the film.
I could find many threads complaining about the casting but, when the acting was considered, I sometimes felt the same with Zooey(perhaps the director did wanted the character to act that way) anyways, there were no zombie chasing or action sequences in this film for somebody to perform...So, in that perspective, i think the casting was/should be simple.

Personally, i loved this film and enjoyed every bit of it. I'll give it a strong 7/10

"The Last Airbender" and "After Earth" were the worst Night Shyamalan movies.

[–] goldpink23 10 years ago

I just finished watching this movie. I thought it was decent.I really wish they had better dialogue.I didn't like Zooey's acting in this.However it kept me interested until the end, but I don't know if that has more to do with me waiting for a twist(that was M.Knight's trademark) or M.Knight doing a good job making a convincing thriller.

[–] Lester_Burnham_Risen 10 years ago

that was M.Knight's trademark

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WHY is that his trademark?

As I see it he hates everything Hollywood, espec "twists" so in 6th Sense he makes a total mockery of that concept to the extent of action-replays to say look how moronic you are hanging out for twists.

The Happening is about another all-american 9/11 induced stupidity called TEOTWAWKI and the "run for your lives" concept. The killing themselves plot is that TEOTWAWKI is simply the good old Lemmings to the sea gig. It's just the way "They Got Schooled" as Night puts it in his book.

Of course americans are not used to movies that reflect then in a REAL light so they blame the movie and not themselves.

As Elliot wrote up front

"Poor egotist he has no way of knowing
but he's as good as anything going"

Don't see any twists here man, just stupidity.

http://www.kindleflippages.com/ablog/

[–] ChrRome 10 years ago

your tinfoil hat comments on this board always give me a good laugh

[–] Lester_Burnham_Risen 10 years ago

Other way around mate

The tinfoil hat gig IS the all american TEOTWAWKI beast, as Night shows in The Village and Signs

http://www.kindleflippages.com/ablog/

[–] Enrique-8 10 years ago

It was a great thriller and I was entranced every minute... great effort...

Enrique Sanchez

[–] clydeebarretto 10 years ago

I agree. I first watched this when it came out in the movie theaters by myself and just rewatched it many moons later. Barring some weak and corny dialog, the movie kept the suspense up almost throughout the whole film.

[–] Lester_Burnham_Risen 10 years ago

Barring some weak and corny dialog

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Well Night has a sub-plot here of the evil of small f feminism that took over the world in 1970, and this IS corny so he EMPHASIZES the corniness.

The plot is played by "The Argument" Zoey has invented that according to the sisterhood all men are irresponsible [the original Greer doctrine was "men do not own their issues"], and by some half cocked feminist "reasoning" she needs to punish him by having an affair [remember small f feminism was based on Catherine from Jules and Jim]. But Night makes fun of this by having some fancy Italian cake as the "affair".

Then Night shows us the so called "Femi-Man" as depicted by the math teacher and the "Carefully Taught" boys as the 2 fat boys who explain to Eliot that "he needs to be responsible".

So having set all that up he allows the math teacher to kill himself but has the unseen man [who is portraying Robert Frost the author of Waspish, on the blackboard] actually KILL both and you can see the total glee on Night's face in the DVD extras that he was able to do something to arrest small f feminism.

Finally Zoey SEES the error of her ways and that Eliot IS the hero with responsibility espec for the little girl, so she gets saved along with the girl and Eliot "from themselves".

http://www.kindleflippages.com/ablog/

[–] GreenFace21 10 years ago

Agree. The fact that it's not a masterpiece doesn't make it a worst one either.
I personally enjoy the plants take initiative to "punish" the human. I've seen animals, people, demons, robots, AI, weathers, etc took that initiative on many movies. This time, it's plants turn :).

Surely that's not a clearly genuine idea, but still it's an entertaining idea to contemplate more. Human and animals evolve, so plants surely has to.

~ It's not a good critics, until you let others criticize your version on how it should be done ~

[–] cornfed_bc 9 years ago

I can't believe there are so many people defending this movie!

I had recorded this off TV and half way through I thought of fast forwarding just to see how it ends since a whole lot of nothing was going on besides some bad dialogue.

At the very least, I thought the movie was lame and thought "that's it?" When it ended.

[–] yusef-ghanima 9 years ago

no cure for a superficial flat mind.

i mostly will not be able to answer your reply, since marissa mayer hacked my email, no notification

[–] lenlarga 9 years ago

I completely disagree. This movie kept me hooked all the way through. I was pleasantly surprised since I had low expectations.

[–] bmalone135 9 years ago

They're not saying it's a great movie, just that it's not the worst movie ever. I can agree to that. It's not that good but there are plenty of worse movies out there. I've seen plenty of movies miles worse than this.

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Just because you are too stupid to understand it, it does not mean that it is a plot hole

[–] pgaule 9 years ago

If you lower your expectations enough, anything can seem decent. In all honesty, I remember the trailers/marketing for this movie and I was excited. They really played up the fact that it was M Night's first R-rated movie and the premise was actually a good one. The problem is that the execution was awful. The dialogue was worse than the Star Wars prequels, and none of the characters were developed to the point that you have any reason to care for them. It was just a disorganized mess and the fallout derailed M Night's career.

In a better writer and director's hands, this could have been a good movie. I think the premise was solid - people start offing themselves for no reason...what's going on? It might even be worth remaking with the current trend of apocalyptic story-telling. But, they need to drop the tree/pseudo-science crap. Come up with some other reason for the "happening", or don't explain it at all.

[–] gerbilstunts 9 years ago

"In a better writer and director's hands, this could have been a good movie."

Just watched it yesterday for the first time and that pretty much sums up my feelings. I feel it'd been better as some experimental art house film with less dialogue and a different cast, and yeh don't bother trying to explain it as it just sounds silly.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] sfb1982 8 years ago

Lol this is without a doubt top 10 worst film of all-time.

It's about trees and plants for crying out loud, eve Mark Wahlberg admitted it's the worst movie he's been in and regrets making the film!

Then the mood ring, purple means you're horny?? why did you say this in front of an 8 year old girl Zooey?? SMH.

Pure garbage.

[–] bornskeptic 8 years ago

I didn't get the appeal of this thing at all. At one point there is some very forced "tension" when the little girl is swinging on the tree swing and Marky Mark says something like "I don't think that's a good idea'...and the camera keeps showing us the swing and the branch holding it and...wtf...NOTHING HAPPENED.
This movie tried too hard to build tension where there just wasn't any.
Friggen laughable flick.

[–] Laqueesha 8 years ago

I'm one of the few who genuinely liked this movie. I'd rather watch it again over some bland and unorigional generic superhero movie number #3,069.