The Happening (2008)

Shyamalan creates another urban myth with this slow burning thriller. But it never quite comes to life, due to stiff directing and acting

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.

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.

More than anything, what bothers me about it is a sense of cheapness that ... centrally comes from a concept mainly built for shock value.

Undoubtedly M. Night Shyamalan's weakest thriller to date...

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.

[A]n astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined.

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.

Shyamalan's latest is an improvement, but a full-fledged comeback ain't happening.

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.