The Happening, Ironically

***Note: This posting contains spoilers, so if your taste in movies is bad enough that you're interested in seeing this film, don't read anymore.***

I rented The Happening, even though M. Night Shyamalan has only made one good film in his entire career, and this wasn't it. I picked it because I'm a big, big, big John Leguizamo fan, and I thought if anything could make a Shamalan film worth watching, it would be him. Unfortunately, since he wasn't allowed to act, he couldn't. Like all the other characters, he was only allowed to stare vacantly into the camera. Mark Wahlberg is a terrible actor, so it was no surprise that he was awful. Zooey Deschanel is usually good, but, like Leguizamo, the director couldn't get anything out of her.

I will admit, that the film kept my attention. The tension builds and builds and then...nothing. My guess is that M. Night probably has a pretty good sense of humor, since he titled the film The Happening and not a damn thing happens.

Here's the film, in a nutshell: In New York's Central Park, the wind blows and a bunch of people are compelled to kill themselves. This spreads throughout the "North East," from Massachusetts to Maryland (which, for those of you who know geography, is the lower North East and the upper Mid-Atlantic states) and stays entirely within the political borders of the states. The deaths are caused by a neurotoxin being produced by plants, and, whenever people gather in groups of more than 5, it sets off the toxins. People split up and try to out run it, and then it just stops. And then it starts again in France. The end.

There's a heavy-handed sub-plot where Zooey tells Mark that she worked late but she was really having dessert with a coworker who keeps calling her and their marriage is falling apart, but it's just so clunky and makes Mark Wahlberg look so pathetic. There's about 20 minutes with a crazy woman, but then she dies. I think there was an attempt at some sort of psychological something, but it was so poorly done it's not worth mentioning.

The best part of the movie? If you watch the special features, in the gag reel, Mark Wahlberg says to M. Night, "Okay, so if the house is boarded up and if it looks like no one lives there, why would we think there would be fresh groceries there?" That pretty much sums up the whole film.

Yes, Virginia, The Happening is a terrible film.