June 15, 2008
M. Night Shyamalan's latest horror
My sister mentioned to me over our Father's Day brunch that she was thinking of seeing M. Night Shyamalan's new flick, The Happening. I told her that I'd heard the film was stupefyingly awful; she said she'd catch it on DVD.
Shyamalan, who once upon a time made the entertaining Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, has apparently descended into creative madness. Or mundaneness. Or hackdom.
WIth that in mind, here's the beginning of a savage review.
Shyamalan's latest movie, The Happening, is not merely bad. It is an astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined. It's the kind of movie you want to laugh about with friends, swapping favorite moments of inanity: "Do you remember the part when Mark Wahlberg ... ?" "God, yes. And what about that scene where the wind ... ?"
The problem, of course, is that to have such a conversation, you'd normally have to see the movie, which I believe is an unreasonably high price to pay just to make fun of it. So rather than write a conventional review explaining why you should or shouldn't see The Happening (trust me, you shouldn't), I'm offering an alternative: A dozen and a half of the most mind-bendingly ridiculous elements of the film, which will enable you to marvel at its anti-genius without sacrificing (and I don't use that term lightly) 90 minutes of your life. As this is intended to be an alternative to seeing the actual film it is, of course, overflowing with spoilers. Those who still intend to see the film despite my warnings should probably stop reading now ....
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Mike Lief at June 15, 2008 09:48 PM
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