The Happening | 
 enlarge | Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Actors: Mark Wahlberg, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $10.99
You Save: $19.00 (63%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  168 reviews
Sales Rank: 631
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 90
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: FOXD2253289D
UPC: 024543532897
EAN: 0024543532897
ASIN: B001DZOC6Y
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: October 7, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
A paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity. Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 10/07/2008 Starring: Mark Wahlberg John Leguizamo Run time: 91 minutes Rating: R
Amazon.com
You'd expect the end of the world to be no day in the park, but in M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, a day in the park is where the end begins. One otherwise peaceful summer morning, New Yorkers strolling in Central Park come to a halt in unison, then begin killing themselves by any means at hand. At a high-rise construction site a few blocks over, it's raining bodies as workers step off girders into space. And all the while, the city is so quiet you can hear the gentle breeze in the trees. That breeze carries a neurotoxin, and what or who put it there (terrorists?) is a question raised periodically as the film unfolds. But the question that really matters is how and whether anybody in the Middle Atlantic states is going to stay alive. The Happening is Shyamalan's best film since The Sixth Sense, partly because he avoids the kind of egregious misjudgment that derailed The Village and Lady in the Water, but mostly because the whole thing has been structured and imagined to keep faith with the point of view of regular, unheroic folks confronted with a mammoth crisis. Focal characters are a Philadelphia high-school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg, excellent), his wife (Zooey Deschanel) and math-teacher colleague (John Leguizamo), and the latter's little girl (Ashlyn Sanchez). Instinct says get out of the cities and move west; most of the film takes place in the delicately picturesque Pennsylvania countryside, with menace hovering somewhere in the haze. There are no special effects (apart from a wind machine and some breakaway glass), but the movie manages to be deeply unsettling in the matter-of-factness of its storytelling. Especially effective is its feel for what we might call the surrealism of banality. One warning sign that someone has been infected by the neurotoxin is irrational or erratic speech and behavior, yet Shyamalan has a genius for dialogue that sounds normal and everyday as it's spoken, yet flies apart grenade-like a second later as its logic (or illogic) sinks in. Then there's Deschanel's eye-rolling dodginess about the messages some guy has been leaving on her cellphone. Or the fellow (Frank Collis) who addresses his greenhouse plants as though they were his children--has a stray toxic zephyr wafted his way, or is this just his idea of normal? --Richard T. Jameson
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Stills from The Happening (Click for larger image)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 163 more reviews...
 An awful movie.... December 1, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Al Gore would probably like this movie, but Michelle Polk rates it at zero! A gory movie which made little sense. Oh, I get the whole propaganda theme but the movie itself was just stupid. Suicide after suicide is committed because the plants are angry with humans. It might make a good sci-fi book but to watch those scenes over and over was just too rough!
 Graceful Characters, Interesting Story November 30, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm noticing an interesting trend in Mr. Shyamalan's movies. While the "threat" or "main issue" of the movie is often dramatic and horrifying, the dialogue and relationships of the characters are usually delicate and graceful. There's a beautiful subtly to his movies that tug at your heart ever so gently. All of his main characters have wounded souls that, somehow through the difficulty they confront in the course of the story, figure out their greatest strengths. Not every ending is a perfect one and not every loose end is neatly tied and I wonder if that's why so many are walking away from his movies disappointed. There's no bang-bang shoot em' up or excessive gratuitous sex in every scene. I really walk away feeling connected to the people in his films. They seem like everyday people (with the exception of a few supernatural powers in some of his films - lol) with everyday internal struggles and I like that.
The Happening's characters are really no different than any of Mr. Shyamalan's other films, but the story is definitely different. No one ever fully answers the question of what is happening, yet there is a perfectly scientific plausibility to the event. I felt a myriad of emotions from fear and panic to being intrigued with how the story unfolded and ultimately how it ended.
This was a good movie. I think what so many viewers are dissatisfied with is M. Night Shyamalan's style. He's a unique director and producer just like Quentin Terantino is... you either like his style or you don't. The Happening was a great story with great characters and a lot of heart.
 i love this movie November 29, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
becaause if they keep making movies like this we are going to do ourselves in
the future of movies is indeed corporate dispensibility
Don't waste your money November 28, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Lousy script and lousy performances . Mark Wahlberg,you are too good to be in such a lousy boring movie. Save your money and don't rent it.
Some similar themed sci-fi movies: November 27, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Hard to believe The Mist is rated higher and The Happening, or is it? Cloverfield I can accept as rated higher, but The Mist??? No freakin' way.
The Mist was sub-mediocre at best. Lame acting, lame(and same ol) CGI monster, boring cliched dialouge and poor acting. I found myself fast forwarding through most of the silly 'made for TV' style over-acting and trite dialouge parts just to see the lame CGI tentacled 'monster'. These numbers do certainly tell a tale....
I found The Happening to be a fitting homage/update to the sci-fi's of the 1950's. You know, where the human psychology and the ensuing paranoia is the 'monster'. If folks wanted to see a monster, watch Cloverfield or The Mist. That style of film has been done to death.
The Happening is a thinking man's film and yes, a low budget film. What used to be called a B-movie. Called a B movie because it was the lesser and second half of a 'double billing' where you saw two movies for the price of one.
Sure, a fan blowing on the grass is the 'monster'. But man does he get your attention with the paranoia and uncertainty of it all. Ever see The Unknown Terror? Soap suds were the 'monster'. But had M. Night revealed 'yet another' tentacled CGI monster in it toward the end, people would have loved it. Surely Marky Mark and gang are of a higher caliber acting class than the nobody goons in The Mist, no?
While I am not a big M. Night fan, I admire what he tried to do here, which was in a similar vein to his film Signs. While I won't go into dissecting the symbolism - this is the only value of the film and should be left to the viewer - the symbolism in The Happening does leave much food for thought. (note: I don't think the symbolism had anything to do with the environment, it was much deeper as touched on it other reviews). But in 2008, films like this are not for the masses. People don't want to think or discuss ideas. Human psychology is indeed the monster these days, and probably always has been, but not to the degree we are seeing nowadays.
Ever hear that old The Who song, Pinball Wizard? It had nothing to do with pinball. "That deaf, dumb and blind kid" who "sure plays a mean pinball" represents a generation who are deaf, dumb, and blind to the realities of the world around him because his focus and attention are on the 'blinking lights, bells and whistles' of technology, represented in the song by a pinball machine. It is with this mindset that most of the general public view films these days. Give me bells, flashing lights and whistles. Don't wanna think. That is why it is so hard to find some of the better 50's sci-fi on DVD these days. One must distinguish the difference between distraction and focus. For example, Britney Spears is a distraction but appears to be a constant focus, as far as the News is concerned anyways. Hmmm, maybe News/Media is the distraction...
For those who did like the symbolism, mood, and sci-fi/paranoid atmosphere of The Happening, check out:
The Day The Earth Caught Fire
Curse of the Demon
It Came From Outer Space
It Conquered the World
Five
27th Day
The Earth Dies Screaming
Target Earth
The Crawling Eye
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