A movie review: Da Happenin. (spoiler - Just read it to save yourself)

[Timewarp]

Welcome to a deviantion of my usual rants. Today is father's day and I got to spend a good 1 1/2 hours watching The Happening. Now first off, i've never seen a M. Night Shamalamadingdong film before. But after seeing his latest film i'm inclined to continue the old tradition. Even if I wasn't forced to watch these films, would I actually watch them on my own free will?
Well being a glutton for bad movies thanks to MST3K, I have a gay olde time riffting this movie throughout. Watching it twice though is entirely impossible.

Plot synopsis: Plants kill people - A greenpeace's wet dream.

Art direction: Before we go into the story I just want to point out the art direction. So imagine Cloverfield, minus the first person camera, minus major CGi, minus built soundstages and their you go. All this is fillmed as I would guess just plain old outside. It's kinda of like that World of the Worlds cammera perspective.

Story: Okay so the story starts in a park in New York at 9 something o clock and people start killing themselfs. Then a construction sight, more people suiciding. Then the next scene is at a school where we meet what I call the "one survivor's story" protaganist. A school teacher who teaches plant biology. His name is...who cares... They're talking about bees dissapearing. And you think this is an important plot point. It isn't.
Skip a few scenes, we meet the protagonist wife who I would discribe as a skitzophrenic, already suicidal cardboard cutout. Now she's afraid of the protagonist finding out she had a relation with some random unknown dude...but it's too boring to even get into. So both him and her leave the city by train. They meet up with some minor character and his child. Yada yada, everyone rides the train.
Bad stuff happens in a zoo. The trains stop. Everyone's stuck in some nowhere town. People find out the suicides are spreading in spacific areas. The minor character leaves the child to find his wife. He dies. And so you spend about the rest of 50 mins following the 3 only survivors: teacher, skitz and child. They find plants are killing people from some hotdog loving botanminst. They run from the plants. Everyone not the main character dies. (Two kids are brutally shot by a shotgun by rednecks out of fear. I just wanted to point that out) Main characters get trap in an old ladie's house. She dies. The main characters decide they want to die together. They don't die.
3 months later everything is normal. and the plants start killing in some foriegn country. The End.

So....if i'm lying i'm dead. Seriously. I was hoping for that M night twist people keep talking about. Plant monster, witches, aliens, ghost....anything. We don't even get gov't conspiracy. The reason, the movie says, is the plants are giving a warning. wooo....nature's a total bitch.

So there you go, I saved you 1.4 gallons of gas. Like I said, I was just riffting the whole movie to pay attention to detail. If you want to watch it...you must really hate humanity.

My favorite line of the movie: "I'm talking to a plastic plant. I'm still talking to a plastic plant".

 

[Meka1]

i knew it!

I totally knew that there would be some stupid plot to this movie. All of his movies, except for the 6th sense, sucked. I remember going to the movies with papi and seeing a poster for the move and it was just a bunch of cars on the side of the road with the words "the happening" over it and the first thing i thought about was.."they just did this movie, it was called The Mist", lol its amusing, the things these directors come out with. I mean seriously, plants? Wow thats worst then the ending to the Village.

 

[PurrBast]

So basically this is Signs but with plants and more people die.

I think of all of his movies so far I liked, the only one was The 6th Sense.

That's it.

:bluestar:

 

[P[a]pi]

So basically this is Signs but with plants and more people die.

I think of all of his movies so far I liked, the only one was The 6th Sense.

That's it.

:bluestar:

Yeah, he's a one hit wonder cus Haley Joel Osment was awesome at whispering haha.

 

[jts963]

Think about it: the only one of that jerk's movies worth a damn was The Sixth Sense, and if you read the history, it's a total rip-off of a popular novel called A Stir of Echoes (1958) which he found out was being made into a movie (Stir of Echoes (1999)) and he managed to beat it to the screens with his ripoff. He's been coasting ever since. Freakin' Hitchcock wannabe. :cross:

 

[Meka1]

Think about it: the only one of that jerk's movies worth a damn was The Sixth Sense, and if you read the history, it's a total rip-off of a popular novel called A Stir of Echoes (1958) which he found out was being made into a movie (Stir of Echoes (1999)) and he managed to beat it to the screens with his ripoff. He's been coasting ever since. Freakin' Hitchcock wannabe. :cross:

lol wow i did not know that, that sucks

 

[jts963]

lol wow i did not know that, that sucks

Yep, and to add insult to injury, the asshat decided to mock those few movie critics who weren't in the M. Night praise parade and who pointed out the rip-off. In his next movie Unbreakable, there's a character named "Dr. Mathison." Richard Matheson is the author of A Stir of Echoes.

 

[Abonisher2]

Great review, wish I read it prior to seeing this crapper. I need to add hillarious stuff happens in a zoo. That seen was so fake it was laughable. The film drags on and on and we don't even care about these characters anymore. Were's the twist M Night? "There isn't one" Better yet were the hell are you?

 

[Meka1]

Yep, and to add insult to injury, the asshat decided to mock those few movie critics who weren't in the M. Night praise parade and who pointed out the rip-off. In his next movie Unbreakable, there's a character named "Dr. Mathison." Richard Matheson is the author of A Stir of Echoes.

what an asshole