The Happening (potential spoilers?)
Jun 21, 2008 20:08:46 GMT -5
Post by Demko on Jun 21, 2008 20:08:46 GMT -5
So, The Future Mrs. Demko (heretofore shortened to FMD) and I went to catch the latest from M. Night Shmayalan, The Happening. As an intro, the movie is about a schoolteacher and his wife, who are escaping from Philadelphia because of an unexplained virus hitting the city (and other cities in the northeast). First of all, let me say this... I'm one of the few people who's liked MOST of what M. Night has done (and yes, this includes Lady in the Water). So I may have a bias here, but it's actually FOR the director, rather than against him.
So I went into the movie not expecting too much, since I'd heard through the grapevine about the lack of any major twist, which I guess could be construed as a spoiler, so I'll mark the thread as such. I won't give away any other details, however. But I wasn't expecting much, and unfortunately, was delivered even less than my expectations.
I'd expected this to be a well-written straightforward scary movie premise. However, what was placed up on the screen might be construed as a straightforward story, but could not be considered well-written, even by the loosest of standards. Don't get me wrong. M. Night really has suspenseful and scary moments down PAT. However, what he failed to realize in this movie is that the dialogue he wrote sounded like a stilted high school play put on by the Varsity Football team. No one talks even remotely like these people talked, especially Mark Wahlberg's character. The dialogue between characters was ridiculous. A good example of this was the following. John Leguizamo's character has a wife who apparently decided to hop a bus to Princeton, NJ. Now, this is how I would state this fact:
Me: My wife just got on a bus to Princeton.
This is how he said it:
JL: My wife has gotten on a bus headed to the city of Princeton.
Who the hell talks like that? Don't even get me started on the random pointing out of tree-species. I mean, this movie might as well have been written by 8 year olds.
The story was alright, I guess. But it seemed like M. Night couldn't decide on one of his 'twist' endings, and so he decided to just end it. There's no real resolution to the story. No explanation. Nothing. It's just over.
The acting was just as bad as the dialogue, with Mark Wahlberg delivering the worst of it. How does this guy go from Oscar nominations for The Departed to this piece of trash?
A lot of people are defending the bad dialogue and acting as an 'intentional move' by the director. Well, that's fine, but the movie was never marketed as a bad B-movie, like say, the Grindhouse movies. If I wanted a B-horror flick, I'd rent one. I don't bother going to see those in the theaters (unless, of course, Bruce Campbell is involved somehow).
Anyhow, stay away from this movie, unless you want to be confused for an hour and a half concerning all the bad choices M. Night made during the process of shooting this movie.
So I went into the movie not expecting too much, since I'd heard through the grapevine about the lack of any major twist, which I guess could be construed as a spoiler, so I'll mark the thread as such. I won't give away any other details, however. But I wasn't expecting much, and unfortunately, was delivered even less than my expectations.
I'd expected this to be a well-written straightforward scary movie premise. However, what was placed up on the screen might be construed as a straightforward story, but could not be considered well-written, even by the loosest of standards. Don't get me wrong. M. Night really has suspenseful and scary moments down PAT. However, what he failed to realize in this movie is that the dialogue he wrote sounded like a stilted high school play put on by the Varsity Football team. No one talks even remotely like these people talked, especially Mark Wahlberg's character. The dialogue between characters was ridiculous. A good example of this was the following. John Leguizamo's character has a wife who apparently decided to hop a bus to Princeton, NJ. Now, this is how I would state this fact:
Me: My wife just got on a bus to Princeton.
This is how he said it:
JL: My wife has gotten on a bus headed to the city of Princeton.
Who the hell talks like that? Don't even get me started on the random pointing out of tree-species. I mean, this movie might as well have been written by 8 year olds.
The story was alright, I guess. But it seemed like M. Night couldn't decide on one of his 'twist' endings, and so he decided to just end it. There's no real resolution to the story. No explanation. Nothing. It's just over.
The acting was just as bad as the dialogue, with Mark Wahlberg delivering the worst of it. How does this guy go from Oscar nominations for The Departed to this piece of trash?
A lot of people are defending the bad dialogue and acting as an 'intentional move' by the director. Well, that's fine, but the movie was never marketed as a bad B-movie, like say, the Grindhouse movies. If I wanted a B-horror flick, I'd rent one. I don't bother going to see those in the theaters (unless, of course, Bruce Campbell is involved somehow).
Anyhow, stay away from this movie, unless you want to be confused for an hour and a half concerning all the bad choices M. Night made during the process of shooting this movie.
