The “Sixth Sense” days of glory are gone, but director M. Night
Shyamalan is still struggling to captivate people with his thrillers that are
less and less…well…thrilling.
So, what is happening in “The Happening”? After seeing one
failure after the other, the Indian American writer-director thought a little
gore and violence might just be the right elements to spice up his new film.
Ok, there is some mystery in the movie, but one that doesn’t
make too much sense.
The action centers around science teacher Elliot (Mark
Wahlberg), his wife (Zooey Deschanel) and his best friend (John Leguizamo) who
all run away from….umm…a deadly toxin. No, the toxin isn’t deadly in the way
that toxins are usually deadly. It doesn’t make you ill, it doesn’t cause you
to suffocate. It only gives you a great, irrepressible desire to kill yourself.
You’d never guess who’s emitting the fatal toxin: Mother Earth, who is sick and
tired of man’s abuse of nature, and now wants to kill all of its inhabitants!
It seems Shyamalan decided to show his hippie part in this film.
Good. Having found a good enough excuse for all the gore
that is following, Shyamalan lets the show begin. People start killing
themselves in the most creative ways: they stick hairpins in their throats,
they jump either from tall buildings or in front of lawn mowers, they throw
themselves inside the cages of wild animals at the zoo and let themselves be
eaten. All eye-candy for gore-fans. If the show is not too much even for them…
In a recent interview with Reuters, Shyamalan said he wanted
to “play on people's fears for the future about such things as terrorism and
climate change.”
Probably fearing that he would get another Razzie Award for
worst supporting actor, like he did for “Lady In The Water,” Shyamalan decided
not to cast himself in the movie this time.
Back in 1999, his movie “The Sixth Sense” impressed all
critics and was the second-highest-grossing picture of the year, being
nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture, writing and
directing. Since then, it was all downwards for Shyamalan’s movies, as concerns
the critics’ opinion. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t make money at all. “Signs,”
for example, starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix and Abigail Breslin, grossed
$227 million domestically and $408 million worldwide in 2002. It was the
highest-grossing film of Gibson’s career as an actor.
The latest film of Shyamalan, “Lady in the Water,” which
was released on July 21, 2006, was a kind of a scary fairytale, as well as a
commercial failure. The movie received four Razzies, for worst supporting
actor, worst director, worst screenplay and worst picture.
About “The Happening” Shyamalan told Reuters that he mainly
wanted this eighth film of his to be “a really fun B-movie.” At least he is not
very demanding…
Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Media By Numbers,
predicts “The Happening” will definitely be a stronger opening than “Lady in
the Water.”
Quoted by Reuters, Dergarabedian said the marketing for the
movie “has been pretty strong, and audiences are always intrigued by M. Night
Shyamalan.”
Produced by Shyamalan, Sam Mercer and Barry Mendel, the film
is scheduled to be released on Friday, June 13.
