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Resources » Entertainment » Movie Reviews »
The Happening (2008) : Not the best from Shyamalan
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Post debacle of ‘Lady in the water’ (2006), M night Shyamalan went into retrospection and very little was heard of him for more than a year. He came back into limelight with the announcement of ‘The Happening’ which was also significant news for Indian film industry since UTV, an Indian company, was investing money in it. So this was a major leap for UTV as well which had a fantastic run back home last year with a string of big and small budget hits.
The budget of the new film was around $ 60 million excluding marketing costs. It was a modest budget considering the past films of Shyamalan, but was still high taking into the fact that his last film couldn’t garner even 75 million worldwide, which was the budget of the film. The shooting began in the year 2007 and film hit the theatres on 13th of June (a Friday) 2008.
This is the story of the film.
In New York people suddenly begin to commit suicide in the very bizarre manner. Before any one could understand what is happening, the epidemic begins to spread to other parts of USA as well. Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) is a science teacher in a high school at Philadelphia. He comes to know about this epidemic and how people are committing suicides. Elliot decides to leave the city with his wife Alma, a friend Julian and his daughter Jess. Hey all board a train to travel to a safe place but the train stops in midway and then they come to know that the driver had lost radio contact with the station. It seems that the epidemic has hit that place too.
By that time it is becoming evident that the epidemic is spreading through the air. The survivors from different parts gather at a point where roads from different towns meet. There they decide to move in groups of 2 on foot. Before that a botanist put forwards his theory that this epidemic has been spread by plants and trees by releasing toxic gases in the air. They are doing it as a defense against mankind. Elliot believes in this theory and asks people to split into smaller groups. By then the epidemic had already hit the 1st group. The people of Elliot’s group panic and run in the different parts. Elliot realizes that the only way to survive is to stay away from other humans as long as possible but he doesn’t have any idea how long will this tactics work since the plants are in no mood to stop.
The core element of the film is same as Shyamalan’s previous films – Supernatural forces. But this time he comes with 2 big changes. The first change is that he lets go of twist ending which was his signature mark and secondly he doesn’t appears in a cameo in the film as he had done in the past. Both were good steps, especially the second one since he was heavily criticized for it in ‘Lady in the water’. So, after bringing in these two changes and getting more modest in his approach does Shyamalan’s regains his magical touch?
The answer is yes but partly. The first half of the film is good but the second half falls flat and after a point it begins to bore you. This is a simple review of ‘The Happening’.
The beginning of the film is quite sensational with people committing suicides in bizarre manners. The most horrible scene being the one in which labors working in an under construction building begin to jump from it in large numbers. There is one more scene which comes in the later part that shows a person mowing himself down by starting a grass mower and lying down in its path.
But after the half time the film loses the plot. The problem here lies in the script. The enemy here is a gentle breeze and you can hardly do anything about it when you can’t see it. The big flaw in the script lets the film down in the second half. The director didn’t know how to conclude the film. It ends abruptly when the trees reverse the process. Why they do it is never explained? The climax is a complete disaster when you consider the fact that it comes from the director of ‘The sixth sense’.
In nutshell, Shyamalan should be happy for regaining some of his form in the first half but the flawed script is a big worry for him. Perhaps it is time now that he should make a film on the script of someone else, concentrating on direction alone since both Lady in the water and the happening suffered due to the script.
The film earned $ 30 millions in the 1st weekend and earned $ 163 million worldwide at the end of its run. The film was successful financially but critically it didn’t do much better than Lady in the water.
I would give this film 2 and half out of 5 stars.
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