The Happening 2008

No matter how many times I am disappointed by M. Night Shyamalan, I will always go see his movies. He is, after all, the master of the intriguing premise. After watching the trailers for The Happening I was interested yet wary. The debacles that were The Village and Lady In The Water were still fresh in my mind and I was not ready to trust the man just yet. But things I heard piqued my interest, namely the lack of a twist and giving an explanation for the phenomena, however vague it might be, fairly quickly into the story. Long story short, I eventually caved and saw the film and then instantly remembered that Shyamalan is also the master at destroying his brilliant premise with unnecessary bloat.
As is always the case with his films, it starts out strong and interesting, in this case a mass suicide epidemic at first thought to be a terrorist attack. But unfortunately, as the excitement of that passes, we are introduced to each of the main characters. And they are all highly reliable performers, Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel and John Leguizamo, but anytime they open their mouths in this film they spit forth the some of the most contrived, forced and downright mind-boggling dialogue I have ever witnessed.
Like I said, I loved the premise of this film, probably more than anything he has ever done. The idea of an entire planet rebellion, violently so, against it's parasitic inhabitants is something I adore and love the exploration of. And I get it, I get the message and I get the warning and I love it. The death sequences are appropriately creepy and unsettling, the use of the wind and the clouds was top notch but the sense of dread that should have been ever present was absent. And as confused as the characters were, it felt as if it was for the wrong reasons, like it was the performers themselves who were confused, reading through the script for the first time.
The personal back stories did nothing to add depth to the narrative and the most unbelievable aspect of the film for me was Wahlberg and Deschanel as husband and wife. Between them lay absolutely no chemistry and even a couple in turmoil like they supposedly were would have some semblance of a bond between them. The performers did not so much emote as they would merely say how they were feeling with awkward dialogue that seemed to be stuck in their mouths. In particular, it was quite hilarious how John Leguizamo was constantly throwing percentages around as if to remind us that he was a math teacher.
Ultimately, The Happening suffers from the same ailment as most disaster movies do, in that it starts out strong, but as soon as the human aspect of the film comes in to play, things just fall flat. In fact, the only film i can think of off the top of my head to play upon the disaster formula well was Deep Impact. There was a real sense of inevitability and desperation that the filmmakers really locked onto in a way that no one else has been able to do effectively. The people seemed real and worn down and there was a sense of urgency. Now I do realize that this film is taking a radically different approach than most of its kind and like I said, I love the idea. This would have been a great episode of The Twilight Zone or an even better novel where the inner dealing of each character could fully blossom. Here we have performers who are forced into doing the ailing will of an increasingly megalomaniac director who I have no doubt will continue to let me down over and over. But damn him, I'll still watch his movies.