Nothing Happening

M. Night Shyamalan, who amazed us with The Sixth Sense (and Unbreakable, if you count my two cents) and slowly made films each worse than the next, is giving us The Happening this summer. Friday June 13th (how appropriate) is when this nugget drops.

Don't like major spoilers? Bookmark this and come back mid-June. Otherwise...

Ffollowing up the professional disappointment of Lady In The Water, this movie is, in a nutshell, The Day After Tomorrow…with plants. A middle school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg), his estranged wife (Zooey Deschanel), best friend (John Leguizamo) and his daughter must all fight to stay alive as a powerful neurotoxin creates global chaos. Originally, this script (under the title The Green Effect) was offered to and passed on by every major studio in 2006. Shyamalan took the studio’s notes and incorporated them into a rewrite, and this version was purchased by 20th Century Fox.

Here's what a script review (not mine, mind you) turned up - and it sounds pretty right on:

What’s good about it?
-An unstoppable mass suicide epidemic caused by airborne toxin is a fairly-ballsy premise for a mainstream thriller.

-Opening scenes (featuring folks stepping off skyscrapers like lemmings, among other bloody catastrophes) are pretty intense.

-It’s easily the most violent screenplay Night has written. I’d be very surprised if this didn’t earn an R rating.

-Pacing.

-Spelling, formatting, grammar and punctuation seem spot-on. (that's not good when there's only five positive things you can say about a script, and one of them is technical)

What’s bad about it?
(A quick note: if Shyamalan is planning on shooting this as a full-out comedy, much of my criticism is moot. For his sake, I truly hope that’s the plan.)

-Note: the film is about killer trees and plants.

-The Happening features the most moronic environmentalism in the history of cinema. It makes On Deadly Ground look like An Inconvenient Truth.

-The kindergarten-level message of the film is that if mankind continues to be cruel to nature…nature will eventually fight back. In case you miss this (despite having it sledge-hammered into your brain for two hours) don’t despair: Shyamalan has characters spell-it-out for us throughout the proceedings.

- The script starts off strong with some truly horrific moments of violence. Unfortunately, one the nature of the film’s antagonist becomes clear…things get funny. Fast. No amount of bloodshed can change that.

- Even Night’s critics admit that he has a knack for character work. Remember how he made you care about Cole Sear and Malcolm Crowe? The family in Signs? Here, he’s taken a different approach and given us a group of characters as one-dimensional and stereotypical as those found in any lowest common denominator, big-budget spectacular. Prepare to be completely ambivalent over the fate of boring school teacher (who, in lieu of being interesting, carries a guitar) and his equally boring wife (who…sends text messages to someone we never meet). I didn’t care if these two lived or died and I sure as hell didn’t care if they reconciled.

- Do you like characters outrunning fireballs? How about characters outrunning wind?

- Laugh-out loud moment: A woman speaks to her teenage daughter via cell phone. She attempts to reassure the girl that everything will be ok, but to stay indoors. After all, the tree outside can’t hurt her, right? Suddenly…the phone goes dead. The mother becomes frantic: “Stacey? STACEY!!!!!!!!”

- The script takes the classic “idiot plot” to previously unknown levels of retardation. Question: If nature itself turned against mankind…wouldn’t the logical course of action be to seek refuge indoors, nail your windows shut and try to make the room as airtight as possible? Off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen spots that would be infinitely safer than roaming around fields, forests and gardens aimlessly. Yet, Shyamalan has his characters do just that. It’s completely illogical and only serves to move the story from one nail-biting sequence to another.

- Again note: the film is about killer trees and killer plants.

- The critics are going to savage this. The late night comedy guys are going to have a field day.

- Moments of deja-vu? Oh yeah! Worldwide chaos through the eyes of an isolated group/family unit? (Signs) Estranged couple that hardly speaks, but still loves one another?(Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense) Emotionally-damaged child who whispers a lot? (The Sixth Sense)

- How much does this screenplay rip off Asian cinema? The mass suicide angle closely mirrors the plot of Sion Sono’s 2002 film, Jisatsu Sakuru (aka Suicide Circle).

- How about a big spoiler? Plant life reacts to negative and positive energy accordingly. If you are a negative person, a tree is more likely to kill you. No, that's no joke.