The Day The Happening Cracked Me

(WARNING: Contains Spoilers)

Last Friday, at the prompting of a close friend, I tagged along to see a showing of The Happening at my local AMC multi-plex (a theater I like very much). I was only vaguely familiar with the movie, having seen a trailer a few weeks ago that didn't really "stick" with me.

No matter, I'd seen a couple of M. Night Shyamalan's movies...I thought The Sixth Sense was overrated but interesting; I loved Unbreakable (even if it had the normally ham-fisted Bruce Willis at the forefront). I figured the worst I could get from the time spent was a movie that was "pretty bad," and there was a dim possibility that a good flick lurking just inside the theater door.

Unfortunately, I didn't set my sights low enough.

After several minutes of propagandistic fluff in the form of commercials and trailers, the movie starts in earnest. Rather than talk in through the synopsis of the film in narrative, which is dull and not really my main argument, I'll give you bullets of what happens. (The order may not be precisely correct, but it's close -- and taken as a whole, really doesn't matter anyway. If you already know the movie, you can just skip ahead to my next posting.)

* Two women are seated in Central Park. Surrounding people stop in their tracks, some start moving backwards. One asks the other if she sees what's happening, but rather than answer, she commits suicide by sticking her chopstick hairpin through her own throat. {So far, I have no problem with this movie.}

* Cut to NYC construction workers telling a dirty joke. WHAM! One of their colleagues has just fallen off the top of the building, we get a ground-level view. While calling for help, WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! Several more bodies fall. Pan up to see, that's right, yet more bodies falling. {Okay, I get it. Do we have to drop an egg crate's worth of people here? And it's really reminiscent of 9/11. Cloverfield can pull off this comparison because they're dropping impersonal buildings. It's quite another to have someone named Danny crunch four feet from the camera.}

* Cut to Mark Wahlberg, science teacher in Philadelphia. People here believe NYC is under terrorist attack and they decide to close the school for good measure. Mark and his pals hop a train out of Dodge. {If you need to get from Point A to Point B to make things happen, that's fine by me.}

* Cut to police helping with ensuing traffic jams. The wind blows. Cop pulls out a gun and shoots himself. Then a cabbie gets out, picks up the gun and shoots himself. A lady walks across the street to do the same thing. {Uh, we're getting quite a body count here, but no real reasons.}

* Cut to Wahlberg and pals on the train. Someone sends a YouTube link to a well-placed iPhone showing a lion ripping the arms off a zoo keeper, ala Monty Python. Train stops in Nowheresville, PA. Why? "We can't get in touch with anyone." So they do what I'd do, go to a diner and eat. Except they listen to the news and discover the entire northeast of the US is being attacked but something biological and maybe not terrorist. {Reminds me of the OK City bombing. First the government said, "it's terrorists," then a few hours later "oh, it's hillbillies." This was back in the day when "terrorists" meant "Arabs" and not anyone the government just happened to hate at the moment, like say, a 5 year-old taking a sucker from the local Safeway.} Everyone decides to head west, out of the attack zone; except for a math teacher who decides he needs to save his wife at Princeton. {For science guys, they're not very good thinkers. Oh, and what the hell is causing all this?}

* Wahlberg and sub-Co get together with a hot-dog loving horticulturalist. That guy's convinced it's the plants causing this. {Okay, so I've got a feel for this now. The horticulturalist will turn out being right, of course. This is an evil plant movie. But evil plants can't strangle people very easily, I guess, so we have to write a movie in such a way that people kill themselves. Repeatedly. In front of the camera. That's right, this is suicide as suspense/entertainment film. Did I say "repeatedly?"}

* The math teacher instructs people in the Jeep their riding in to try and keep the air from outside out. People are starting to freak inside the car. This gets worse when they come across a lawn crew that have hung themselves. {I'd guess Princeton probably isn't the place to be right now.} Cut to Jeep stopping in the street. Now it accellerates full blast into a tree, throwing most occupants through windshield. Math guy gets out and sits in the street. Oh look, there's some glass, this is a good time to cut my wrists. {Let's see, we've had suicide by: needle, jumping, shooting, hanging, mauling, cutting your wrist with glass. The body count is around 15, (mostly) not-spurty-blood gruesome, but all very suggestively graphic and close. And it's the plants doing it. Why am I watching this? People killing themselves. All because of evil plants? Wait a minute, I could walk outta here. If I see one more body/suicide/whatever without any noticeable plot advance, I'm leaving. For the first time in my life, after something like 2500 movies, I will walk out of a cinema.}

* Cut to horticulturist. "Are those animals in the road?" {No, they're people. I'm gone. My friend apologizes for the movie as I walk past.}

I go out to guest services in the lobby, "I just saw The Happening, it's terrible. Have you seen it? It's terrible." I'm babbling. "I don't want my money back, I just want to see something decent. Please gimme a ticket to the next Hulk" and they do.

Hulk isn't great, which means it's about 40 steps above The Happening.

Maybe I missed something? I call my pal later that night.

"What did I miss?" I ask.

"Nothing much. It is the plants. Marky Mark tries apologizing to a plant that turns out to be fake. And they decide they need to outrun the wind. And some kids die and a crazy old woman. It seems like the attack is over, it's a warning to all of mankind, but then it shows up in France. The end."

So I didn't miss anything.

I'm hating this movie more than any movie I've ever hated. Ever. And I've seen a ton of stuff.

This is gonna bug me for awhile.

{And believe me, I'm making this sound much more funny/better than it actually is. The movie crawls, it makes no sense and it snuffs.}