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Happening, The

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 38 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 446 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Sci-fi
Written by: M. Night Shyamalan
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 13, 2008
DVD: October 7, 2008
Running Time: 91 minutes, Color
Origin: USA | India
Summary
RATING: R for violent and disturbing images
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley, Spencer Breslin, and Ashlyn Sanchez
It begins with no clear warning. It seems to come out of nowhere. In a matter of minutes, episodes of strange, chilling deaths that defy reason and boggle the mind in their shocking destructiveness, erupt in major American cities. What is causing this sudden, total breakdown of human behavior?For Philadelphia high school science teacher Elliot Moore what matters most is finding a way to escape the mysterious and deadly phenomenon. (Twentieth Century Fox)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Lady in the Water Signs The Sixth Sense The Village Unbreakable
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
A movie that I find oddly touching. It is no doubt too thoughtful for the summer action season, but I appreciate the quietly realistic way Shyamalan finds to tell a story about the possible death of man.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Even when his scripts aren't working, Shyamalan knows how to frame shots and build suspense. The Happening, even more than his previous films, has a visual elegance and subtlety that helps to overcome the less successful aspects of the plot.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Stina Chyn
Whether you’re a casual or an ardent follower of M. Night Shyamalan's films, The Happening could alienate or dominate your thinking cap. Remember--it's perfectly acceptable to laugh one second and shriek the next.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
A divertingly goofy thriller with an animistic bent, moments of shivery and twitchy suspense and a solid lead performance from Mark Wahlberg.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
It doesn't help that Wahlberg, whose work usually ranges from solid to inspired, is bewildering off-key here, though it may have something to do with playing off Deschanel, who reduces the whole marriage story line to a parody.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
The movie seems more like a '50s science fiction film of extreme paranoia or an episode of "The Twilight Zone" that even at a swiftly paced 90 minutes feels padded.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
In short, this is a Shyamalan movie minus the bravado, the swagger; there are no audacious attempts to pull out the rug from under the audience, no ham-fisted lessons about the importance of religious belief or the power of storytelling.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
What a bunch of nonsense--effective nonsense, chilling nonsense, occasionally wrenching nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Some sure symptoms: The movie demonstrates a smart movie geek's obsession with the rhythms and gory details of horror storytelling, undermined by a pompous insistence on spiritual lessons of the tritest kind.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
As for The Happening, his throwback horror flick that plays like "The Birds" meets "The Blob," it's beyond good and evil. It's dumbfounding.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
It's an entertaining movie, which is half the game, but it's not scary, which it should be. Neither is it something to be taken seriously, though it's intended to be.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Think of the worst Spielberg thriller or one of Hitchcock's dull late career works, then make it ugly and fill it with bad performances; voila: The Happening.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Even in a misfire like The Happening, Shyamalan has a fine feeling for dread. He knows how to creep you out. But he has a tin ear for acting.
Read Full Review >NPR Bob Mondello
If what audiences are looking for is a thrill ride, or even a pervasive eeriness, The Happening's just not happening.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Shyamalan has said he wanted to create the best B-movie ever made, but it fails to be the best C movie of the month. (Stuck or Zohan are better C movies.)
Read Full Review >Empire Will Lawrence
A disappointingly slight offering from a filmmaker that we know is capable of so much more. Shyamalan says that The Happening was his easiest film to shoot. Sadly, it shows.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The film never builds past its initial idea, the references to 9/11 feel cheap, the good actors are wasted, and the bad ones are distracting.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
The old-school horror tricks (the fake scare followed by a real one, the safe haven that isn't) feel more like cribbing than homage, but they get the job done.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams
The man who showed such promise less than a decade ago has been leaving a diminishing creative footprint ever since.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
M. Night Shyamalan's sixth film mines a rich lode of end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it clichés, but while the set up is spooky, the development is heavy handed and marred by Shyamalan's inability to write natural-sounding dialogue or convincing characters.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
It's neither dull nor stimulating, neither off-putting nor engaging.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
After the insufferably dense mermaid mythology of "Lady in the Water," Shyamalan clearly wanted to keep things simple. He whizzed straight past "simple" to simplistic.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Shyamalan isn't drawing the caliber of performances from his actors as he used to. Who can forget Haley Joel Osment's haunting portrayal in The Sixth Sense or that of Toni Collette, who played his mother, or Bruce Willis in arguably his best role?
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The Happening is a movie to walk out of, sleep through, or - best of all - not to bother with.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
A movie that features Wahlberg suggesting everyone try to outrun the wind can barely be watched once.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Shyamalan still has an abundance of personality and ambition, and there are scattered moments of craft throughout, but the gulf between his lofty aspirations and feeble accomplishments has seldom been wider or more chuckle-inducing.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
He still sees dead people, only now they're the best thing in the movie.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
Wahlberg turns in one of his worst performances ever, but then he's saddled with preposterous scenes.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
A high-toned revenge-of-nature horror picture, it's a little depressed, with only gross-out shocks (gushing jugulars, bodies run over by lawnmowers) to relieve the torpor.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
The Happening is both too incoherenly weird and too narratively ambitious for its own good.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Film critics have been asked to say as little as possible about M. Night Shyamalan's new scare film about the perils of messing with Mother Nature. Fair enough. But I will say this: It's not happening.
Read Full Review >Premiere Ryan Stewart
A disaster, representing a number of negative firsts for Shyamalan.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
You feel like you're not watching the end of the world but the end of a career.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Being risibly bad, The Happening is at least worth a laugh. Exactly one laugh, by my reckoning, and completely unintended but no less full-throated for that.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
And now we have this ill wind, this feeble gust of an environmental horror story. The writer-director's disintegration from robust artistic health to narrative incoherence, from hitmaker to box-office loser, has an almost tragic trajectory. It's a saga worthy of being told by the young M. Night Shyamalan.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
To be honest, I would be perfectly happy to walk with a zombie after ninety minutes of this; it would feel like light relief.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The Happening makes you wonder whether Mr. Shyamalan's own switch may have been flipped. How else to explain his film's befuddling infelicities, insistent banalities, shambling pace and pervasive ineptitude?
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.6 (out of 10) based on 446 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Isaac C gave it a10:
Finally Score = Planet 1, Humans 0, I see Genius where humans took a back seat and you can tell by these ignorant reviews how lost we really are and sensitive to the possibility of nature being sensitive and defensive too. Truly a masterpiece and respects to all participants in down playing humans and upscaling the breathing breeze.
Dominick O gave it a1:
I hate when people gives films 0 and 1 on this site because normally they are taking it too far. But I make an exception in this case. The worst acting, worst directing and worst script I have ever seen in a "blockbuster" film - bar none. A good premise and exciting first five minutes followed by 90 minutes of the worst cinema I've ever witnessed. 5 people around us got up and left the cinema.
Sergio O. gave it a9:
There's something everyone is missing, even Mr. Shyamalan. Despite the fact the plot sounds so strange (but not impossible if you read a little about what plants can do when they're in danger), and most people I've watched this movie with ended so shocked, this is a movie about love. Call me a complete fool, or idle, but for me this is the most romantic movie ever made. My point is, this is not a love-movie, but shows what love can do. And maybe this is what people are not seeing, that we need more love to get through these rough times. In the end, this is what love is all about: being confused, being mad, sad and happy. That's why love here seems so real! This is a great movie because it grows by itself.
Richie F. gave it a7:
I just saw this movie and didn't know what to expect because of all the negative reviews. Me, not being an avid M. Night Shyamalan fan, actually enjoyed it. However, there were a few flaws, I think. For one, I wish there was more evidence against the plants for releasing the toxins, although it is a smart idea. Another thing is that I thought they shouldn't have so easily come to the conclusion that larger groups were more susceptible to being killed. However, it was a smart idea to have the main character a science teacher and another important character be a plant expert, although a convenient pair. But other than that, I thought the movie was very intriguing. The camera angles were great and they really caught the effect of the film. The music was solid and of course the actors were alright. I especially liked Zooey Deschannel's performance as the wife. For the most part, this was a very good movie. It was a good idea that was executed well. I would definitely recommend this film to many people.
Simon P gave it a1:
Perhaps we just have to face the fact that this guy had only one good film in him. I remember seeing the trailer for this and thinking it looked worth seeing. I was wrong. It fails on numerous levels, not least by drawing some really bad performances from some reasonably good actors. Wahlberg and Deschanel are painful to watch. The plot's full of holes and there simply isn't anything shocking, scary of moving about the whole thing. Imagine taking a generic zombie film but removing the threat posed by the zombies by having them kill only themselves. Scary? Fun? Nope. It might just be redeemable if it conveyed its message about Man's destruction of the environment in a meaningful or thought provoking way, but it doesn't; it's crass and patronising to anyone with half an ounce of intelligence. It would have been so much better to have donated the millions that went into producing this compost heap of a film to an environmental charity.
Joe D gave it a3:
I expected better from this movie. Turns out it was the best unintentional comedy I've seen. If your looking for a laugh watch this.
James N gave it a0:
Quite possibly the worst film I've ever seen. Wahlberg's acting blends in well with the trees and blows much harder than the deadly breeze he runs from.
