The Happening

Es tut mir leid… Shyamalans Regie-Handschrift beim Aufbau der Spannung ist hier anwesend (das Spukhaus mit der unheimlichen Hausherrin) und man gerät in Versuchung, dem Film 3* zu geben. Alles andere fehlt aber. Das Liebesmotiv funktioniert nicht und die Beziehung der Haupthelden ist unverständlich. In dem Film gibt es weder interessante Dialoge noch eine Pointe im Finale. The Happening ist eine fade, manchmal spannende und manchmal naive Farce, die aus Wasser gekocht und mit Howards Musik aus Signs - Zeichen gesalzen wurde. (09.06.2008)

It’s a pity that the wind didn’t also engulf Václav Klaus, at least Shymalan's ecological agitprop would have had some useful effect. Now, seriously, Shyamalan hasn't lost his directorial skill and he can still make scenes that give you chills, but the problem here is in two things: the half-baked concept, where logic takes a vacation quite often, and then the leading duo. Mark Wahlberg, as much as I like him, is absolutely unsuited to the role of a high school biology professor and bumbling husband (Mark's pissed-off macho characters are best with a gun in his hand) and whenever he tries to play some serious emotion and speaks up, he ruins all the action on screen with his perpetually furrowed brow and unbelievable speech. Mark, sorry, this didn't work out (and now I’m afraid of Jackson's The Lovely Bones). And Zooey, that doll with big eyes, gives it an even bigger punch. So Shyamalan lost with the casting and the half-baked script, but I'm still a fan. (20.07.2008)

Quite fun. How much you’ll enjoy it will depend on when you give up hope of a chilling thriller to make do with a parody of catastrophe movies. I did it during the first ten minutes and I could watch the rest with a smile on my face. I don’t think there’s any other way to be satisfied, because Shyalaman simply could not mean this seriously. Or maybe he did at first, but when he realised that Wahlberg and Deschanel weren’t the right casting choices, he decided to use them differently and turn the thriller he had planned into the utmost B-movie. What takes the film down very deep are the dialogues and the way the actors utter them, otherwise it would’ve been alright, there’s even some atmosphere here and there. I really want to believe in what I’ve just written, but unfortunately, I’m not that sure. If Happening is so bad unintentionally, we are witnessing an enormous failure by a director. There’s one exchange by the end that gives me some hope that my theory is true. In the scene when Elliot is telling about the time he went to buy cough syrup. Alma: “Are you joking?” (Elliot nods in agreement). Alma: “Thanks.” (05.07.2008)

The only question I have in connection with this film relates to the budget. I’d even suspect Shyamalan of preferring to embezzle a little something into his own pocket as if he suspected that his latest venture (as is slowly becoming his habit) wouldn't even make money. But now more seriously: I was not at all disappointed because this is exactly the kind of intimate thriller I was expecting. Shyamalan plunges ordinary characters into a marginal situation that cannot be properly rationally explained, leaving them groping not only over the question of mysterious deaths but also over their own relationships. These relationships are stressed in the extreme, even if some of the dialogue suffers from "romantic B-movie" syndrome. It's not about bogeymen, it's about questions we need to start asking. PS: At times, Shyamalan and his cinematographer Fujimoto did such great work that I thought about how good it would be if he had made Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. (21.07.2008)

When mom gets pissed, her offspring shakes with fear in the corner. When Mother Nature loses patience, not just human kind, but also good movies and Shya’s reputation go up the spout. Unfortunately. I sincerely don’t give a damn if this is meant seriously or not (of course it is), but the result is neither fish nor fowl. Occasionally ridiculous and unintentionally entertaining and at other moments precisely the type of movie I wanted to see (in a few shots Night comes closer to the atmosphere of “The" Birds by Du Maurier than Hitch himself does). Primarily the atmospheric landscapes with a myriad flowers were really impressive; look out, Gardener’s World. I’m sorry that in many scenes I find myself laughing at my favorite and not with him. But this isn’t downright ridiculous, nor is it boring and definitely not unbearable. But thanks to Wahlberg’s “acting performance", it is unintentionally camp. If it weren’t for him, I would go higher with the marks. And what’s the movie actually like? Hard to pin down. Sometimes it just ends up that way. In my eyes, this is the first and I hope the last time this happens for M. Shit happens. What happened happened. Too bad, today is another day. ♫ OST score: 3/5 (12.06.2008)

We will get a point, the story moves forward along a path lined with tension and the actors guide us through this depressing world with such ease that the hour and a half flies by almost on its own. So why am I staring at ultra-low ratings and comments that constantly repeat borrowed complaints from reviews about the lack of a point and the presence of boredom? Happening is already the third film in a row by Shyamalan that the public expects to combine The Sixth Sense and Signs and be a similarly nerve-wracking affair like the two mentioned. And as a result of these expectations, a harsh impact comes. I understand this mistake with The Village, which I still consider one of the best films of my life, but with the excellent Lady in the Water, I understand it less, but if someone can't learn even on their third try, so be it. Perhaps it would be good to go to the cinema without prejudices and false expectations, and to reconcile with the unpredictable Indian Master will be on the agenda again. (23.06.2008)

There's a movie… and it's about nothing… but then… Zooey Deschanel walks in… there's a movie… and it's about nothing… but it has its charm. A typical example. (20.04.2011)

Well, I don't know, I'm kind of on the fence about this... If that's supposed to be a warning, it's a pretty lame one... in any case, I see it as the story of two people who didn't get along very well, their marriage stagnated, but thanks to something going on in the background that made them see a lot of dead bodies, they got back together... I guess :D (20.09.2008)

Except for Marky Mark’s somewhat odd performance and my expectation of a more powerful moral than just that people are mostly a bunch of scumbags who deserve to die (btw our Slovak brothers' title ‘Event’, is a catchier than the Czech ‘It Happened’) I quite liked it. The opening scenes, especially the one with the flying workers, are flawless and people behave wonderfully freakishly. Zooey Deschanel was fantastic as was John Leguisam's mathematician. Shy the director still knows how to make a movie. He can create the right atmosphere and so on, but Shy the screenwriter should take a break for a while. Wait for better ideas and prepare a big comeback. Too bad he didn't have a jab at Potter. (03.09.2008)

An ordinary, straightforward, and boring film. And if it wasn’t for the big creaking house with a strange landlady, I wouldn't have even known that it was made by a master of tension and brilliant twists, and the fact that Shyamalan isn't afraid to show the "action" directly this time and doesn't shy away from the camera doesn't suggest this either. So, we have several truly interesting and bloody accidents that are striking and real enough to captivate (construction site, car, combine harvester), but the atmosphere is nonexistent. There are a lot of unnecessary peripheral that make it impossible for the plot to thicken and work on the tension. And the final twist isn’t surprising, either, it was expected considering the name of the director. (08.10.2008)

Ich bin wahrscheinlich nicht auf der gleichen Wellenlänge wie die meisten User*innen, weil mir The Happening ziemlich gut gefallen hat. The Happening erreicht zwar nicht das Niveau von The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable - Unzerbrechlich oder Signs - Zeichen, es ist aber trotzdem ein Streifen mit einer gelungenen Stimmung und der attraktiven Idee "wir haben die Natur verärgert – jetzt werden wir dafür büßen". Der Film hat mich übrigens in vielen Momenten an Kings Buch "Puls" erinnert (gibt es zu, Shyamalan, du hast es bestimmt auch in einem Atemzug gelesen), in dem eigentlich etwas Ähnliches passiert. Die positiven Aspekte: Szenen wie die fallenden Arbeiter, die schießenden Selbstmörder, die "Übernachtung" im Haus bei der alten Frau, das Ende. Die Schauspieler*innen sind nicht schlecht (bis auf Zooey Deschanel, welche die ganze Zeit seltsam verstört wirkt). Die Musik von Newton Howard ist wie immer gut. Die negativen Seiten: Die Spannung ist nicht so intensiv wie bei Shyamalans vorigen Filmen (das Rauschen des Windes in Baumkronen ist nicht so gut wie ein Maisfeld). In The Happening gibt es nur wenige schaurige, nervenaufreibende und unerwartete Dinge… Und keine besonders schockierende Pointe. Also drei. (20.07.2010)

Ich nehme an (und vielleicht irre ich mich), dass M. Night Shyamalan für einen so depressiven Film ein paar bizarre Dialoge schreiben wollte, um die Atmosphäre mit Humor aufzulockern. Doch was daraus entstanden ist, dem fehlt jegliche kreative Absicht. Die Gespräche der Charaktere sind sinnlos, zu völlig unpassenden Momenten über dumme Dinge und von wirklich ungeeigneten Schauspielern vorgetragen. Mark Wahlberg und vor allem Zooey Deschanel sind absolut unpassend als Hauptpaar. Und obwohl das kleine Mädchen der dritte Hauptcharakter ist und fast den ganzen Film über präsent ist, ist sie so überflüssig, dass man fast vergisst, dass sie da ist. Wenn dann der erste interessante Charakter erscheint (der herzliche Gärtner Frank Collison), der etwas zur Handlung beizutragen hat, fängt er plötzlich an, über die Beliebtheit von Hot Dogs zu philosophieren und verschwindet nach zwei Minuten wieder aus dem Bild. Das Sahnehäubchen ist dann nur noch, dass Alma (Zooey Deschanel) während der bevorstehenden Apokalypse und dem Sterben von Millionen Menschen am meisten ihre eigenen Schuldgefühle quälen, dass sie ihren Ehemann (Wahlberg) betrogen hat, indem sie einfach nur mit einem anderen Mann Kuchen essen gegangen ist. Was für ein Unsinn! In welcher alternativen Welt spielt das denn? (19.06.2018)