Shyamalan creates another urban myth with this slow burning thriller. But it never quite comes to life, due to stiff directing and acting
1 Comment
07/02/08
The Happening (2008)
18
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:168
Fresh:30
Rotten:138
Average Rating:4/10
Consensus: The Happening begins with promise, but unfortunately descends into an incoherent and unconvincing trifle.
Theatrical Release:13-06-2008
Synopsis: M. Night Shyamalan directs this thriller about a science teacher (Mark Wahlberg) who tries to escape with his wife and friend's daughter after an apocalyptic event. THE HAPPENING costars Zooey... [More]
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Reviews for The Happening
Somewhere in The Happening there's a great movie struggling to break free. The concept is fantastic... but poor dialogue combined with even worse performances make for a disappointing and frustrating 90 minutes of film.
06/12/08
Shot in the inimitable Shyamalan lugubriousness
08/26/09
Shyamalan sve lo%u0161ije reagira na gubitak statusa holivudskog bo%u017Eanstva
07/15/09
Seeing The Happening is like going on an outing with an earnest person, who happens to be a drunk. Every time it starts to make sense, it slurs its speech and starts dropping things -- such as coherence and credibility.
02/01/09
More than anything, what bothers me about it is a sense of cheapness that ... centrally comes from a concept mainly built for shock value.
11/14/08
Undoubtedly M. Night Shyamalan's weakest thriller to date...
11/06/08
While not as laughable as the narcissistic Lady in the Water ,it fails just as miserably as narrative and even more miserably with its flat characters and tone deaf dialogue.
10/12/08
[A]n astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined.
09/22/08
It's a great idea. A silent, unknown killing machine knocking people off while a science teacher tries to figure out why. But it just didn't work.
08/27/08
Shyamalan's latest is an improvement, but a full-fledged comeback ain't happening.
08/08/08
Shyamalan is a master at a visual iconic moment - but the "filler" (you might have learned about it in English class by this name: "story") gets weaker and weaker every film.
07/17/08
The M. Knight brilliance is there in quick jolts of suspense and terror, but those moments are the exception in this otherwise flat little thriller.
07/11/08
Shyamalan's religious ideas are a lot like Bush's: Nearly theology free.
07/10/08
M. Night Shyamalan offers up low-intensity thrills that fail to match the shivery shudders of his best work (THE SIXTH SENSE, SIGNS). His patented approach - mixing domestic drama with horror - plays out on a much larger canvas.
07/04/08
It is the first film of his career that feels incompetent and utterly gratuitous at times.
07/03/08
Usually Shyamalan can hide his limitations as a screenwriter behind his skill as a director. Here, that skill fails him as well, and the whole movie falls apart.
07/01/08
Un nuevo fiasco de M. Night Shyamalan, que sigue siendo un director con ideas interesantes (tanto argumentales como visuales) pero que necesita urgentemente la ayuda de un buen guionista.
06/28/08
Holy Mother of God...this is awful.
06/23/08
The Happening is an awful letdown, yet it leaves you with something new, as a gently waving tree -- that classical image of pastoral tranquillity -- mutates into a harbinger of doom.
06/23/08
Latest News for The Happening
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June 16, 2008:
WNYC RADIO: A numbing polemical morality tale in dreary doomsday thriller clothing, this dull downer for all its mass panic attack high alert mode, may be more effective in unintentionally boring people to death. 
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