The Happening
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: June 13, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
34
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
17
Negative:
18
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
An unapologetic B-movie. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger 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
75
Miami HeraldRene 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
60
The New York TimesManohla 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
60
Film ThreatStina 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
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk 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
50
VarietyJustin 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
50
Village VoiceRobert Wilonsky
What a bunch of nonsense--effective nonsense, chilling nonsense, occasionally wrenching nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa 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
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie 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
50
Los Angeles TimesCarina 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
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick 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
50
NPRBob 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
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter 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
50
Portland OregonianShawn 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
42
Baltimore SunMichael 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
40
SalonMary 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
40
EmpireWill 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
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth 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
40
SlateDana 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
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
It's neither dull nor stimulating, neither off-putting nor engaging. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael 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
38
USA TodayClaudia 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
38
TV Guide MagazineMaitland 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
38
New York PostKyle Smith
A movie that features Wahlberg suggesting everyone try to outrun the wind can barely be watched once. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The Happening is a movie to walk out of, sleep through, or - best of all - not to bother with. Read full review
33
The A.V. ClubNathan 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
30
Washington PostStephen Hunter
He still sees dead people, only now they're the best thing in the movie. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Wahlberg turns in one of his worst performances ever, but then he's saddled with preposterous scenes. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)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
30
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
The Happening is both too incoherenly weird and too narratively ambitious for its own good. Read full review
25
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
25
Boston GlobeTy Burr
You feel like you're not watching the end of the world but the end of a career. Read full review
25
PremiereRyan Stewart
A disaster, representing a number of negative firsts for Shyamalan. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter 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
20
TimeRichard 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
20
The New YorkerAnthony 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
10
Wall Street JournalJoe 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
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