The Happening

Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan had trouble getting anybody to back this picture. It appears some major studios have a decent nose for shit after all, because this thing is pathetically bad. Shyamalan, who made three good movies before starting his downhill plunge with The Village, has completely lost it with this one. Mark Wahlberg plays a science teacher in the Northeast who finds himself in the middle of some kind of chemical attack where people are committing mass suicide. I won’t reveal the source, but I will tell you that it’s not as shocking as Shyamalan wants you to think. He basically sets up a half-hour movie and stretches it to 90 minutes, resulting in a maddeningly slow pace. When Wahlberg’s character makes deductions about how and what is causing the attacks, it’s comical how ridiculous it is. The movie is void of logic, short on scares, and horrendously directed. Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel, normally good actors, look totally lost. A sure contender for year’s worst. Shyamalan has lost it.