Saturday, June 14, 2008

The Happening



Rating : 3/10
Running Time : 91 Minutes
Release Date : 13th June ‘08
Director & Writer : M Night Shyamalan ;
Starring : Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez


I think M Night Shyamalan has lost his Sixth Sense, I can see the Signs, its clearly Happening.

I think there must be a reason why you want to spook people, some message you want to get across. If suddenly people start killing themselves, and it spreads like an epidemic throughout the north-east of USA, then for sure it spooks you. Also people finding different innovative ways of killing themselves doesn’t make for pleasant watching in the best of times / movies. And it drags – more people kill themselves, we get exposed to some of the classic American nut-cases, then more people kill themselves. And we still don’t know why…

Mark Wahlberg, as a science school teacher, plays his part pretty convincingly. Somehow, recently, I’ve had an overdose of him, having seen him in ‘The Invincible’, and ‘The Shooter’ apart from ‘The Italian Job’ (the remake, one of my favourite movies). Maybe it’s a sign ? He was good in this movie as well, trying to manage his wife and a kid while trying to figure out whats happening amidst the bewildering going-ons. It’s a well made film, as far as the art of film-making goes. Some nice jokes, a lot of tension, some emotion etc. But you cant help but wonder what was the point of it all !?

I loved Sixth Sense, didn’t think much of Signs and successfully dodged his other movies (Village, Lady in the Water). I think the director is on a non-stop downward spiral. I was proud of myself for predicting the ending, for predicting the way he would end the film. Until my wife cattily remarked it could be because I’ve started thinking like him. After watching the Happening, that wasn’t a compliment…

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Sixth Sense is one of my top 3 all time favourites.
Signs was also good yaar how come you didn't like?
That scene when the alien appears in Mexico childrens party on video tape. Amazing

Anonymous said...

Well, I decide to skip this movie post your review.. Dont want to lose my senses :) .. Thanks , Bee

Vikas said...

although i must say .. the feeling of being alone.. (in this case was a bunch of ppl) is very scary !
i can remember coming out of i am legend and trying to picturize an empty nariman point at 10 o'clock on a weekday.. and it sent shivers down my spine !!

guess one must live it up while one can !!

vikas.

Rohit Deep said...

Well this is a true Bollywood masala formula right? One formula is a hit, lets milk it with a tweak here and tweak there.

This is the thing with one hit wonders, they keep on wondering which one is their one hit, not realising that it is already over.