Your last post Erik has awakened by blogging slumber. Your M. Night defense is surely in jest. I just finished The Happening about 30 seconds ago and it surely deserves all the wrath and scorn that has been heaped upon it. At the very least, I was hoping the movie would be “bad” in a funny way, something to be mocked, yet lauded by my otherwise faux hipster alternate persona. But honestly, The Happening truly sucks. The acting and writing are straight out of The Phantom Menace – Mark Wahlberg’s performance is so bizarrely painful, I almost find myself disliking his awesome performance in The Departed retroactively. It’s really the worst acting since Jake Lloyd played Anakin Skywalker [yes, I actually consider the acting performance of a 9 year old boy to be worthy of scorn - even more worthy than that of Hayden Christianson whose perfomance was almost equal, but not quite up-to, that unique level of derision of scorn I reserve for that little shit]. And don’t even get me started on Zooey Deschanel – she was tolerable in Elf and that’s about it. Otherwise, please put her in the Maggie Gyllenhaal Hall of actresses I never need to see in a movie again. But really, this is simply a tour de force of bad writing and directing, despite every actor/actress’ attempt to steal M. Night’s thunder. There isn’t a believable piece of dialogue in the movie. For that matter, there are no believable plot developments…or character reactions…or likable characters!
In reality, I guess I dislike this movie so strongly because I actually believe, unlike other stinkers The Village and The Lady Under The Water, that this movie’s plot is worth telling in some improved format. Not as some kind of environmental moral crusade, but as a creepy horror story in its own right. The previous two M. Night movies didn’t raise my ire because they sucked through and through. It is hard to imagine that those movies would succeed in the hands of a more able director. This story, on the other hand, had potential. Little did I know that its potential for directorial abuse ran so high.
{If someone actually gets my blog post reference, than you truly appreciate the awfulness of this movie. Congratulations!!! If you didn’t, it’s probably more of a reflection of my annoying willingness to grasp onto rather insignificant – though I find telling – dialogue in movies both good and bad}
October 9, 2008 at 4:48 pm |
I thought that line was awesome, I don’t know what you are talking about. It was perhaps a bit too campy for the tone of the film. Ultimately, I think we all occasionally like a “bad” movie. Hell, I liked Stealth. So what am I supposed to value more, the pure artistic credentials of a movie or whether I felt like it was a good use of my time?