"The (What the hell's..) Happening"

Date : Saturday 14th June 2008
Place : Fame Adlabs,Inorbit Mall, Malad(W)
Time : 11.15 p.m
Reason : The much awaited Shyamalan's "The Happening".

The only reason I prefer night shows is because I enjoy a good movie with a reasonably good (silent) crowd and seldom miss any dialogues on the late shows.But for once I wished it never happened .. me booking tickets..inviting a friend of mine to watch it ... and claiming that its gonna be a good one,just to convince him to give me company for the 11.15 night show ... I truly wish it just didnt happen..

What started off with people on Central Park,NY slowing down and coming to a standstill,was enough to captivate the audience and then was expected to take them on a spine-chilling story having a dramatic end with a big-bang revelation of theories explaining why it happened and how it got resolved.But alas,for a buff like me nothing close happened and just one good scene or a coupl'a scenes aint enough to pacify me and make me applaud the director/story-writer for his work.

I guess Mark Wahlbergs character(Elliot) is totally wasted for a guy whos done movies like "Shooter","The Departed","The Italian job" and "We own the night".I dunno why the hell did he choose to play a character who has nothing to do except run throughout the movie with his wife(Alma) and his friends kiddo(Jess) finally to remain unaffected by the neurotoxin and live happily ever after.There were only 4-5 main characters in the film and they did everything except act for nuts,like the stranded army man,the botanist and his wife who had nothing to do except give Mark n company a lift with a couple of hamburgers to munch upon...The movie was abundant in cliche dialogues and even people like "my dear friend" who accompanied me(considering the fact that hes a sucker for movies) could predict some of them ...

“We lost Contact….
With whom ??…
Everyone”…..

Some scenes were fairly good,namely the one where the jeep carrying Mark's friend comes to a halt after the occupants get contaminated with the neuro-toxin and suddenly throttles towards a big tree for head-on collision.The impact shown was simply marvellous.The other being the construction workers free falling into ground-zero while their co-workers just keep watching helplessly.

All in all,I guess even Shyamalan had no idea how to conclude the story,which he thinks has been built up stupendously over a couple of "wind blowing over the trees/fields" shots,and he thus calls for a news flash with a professor from Carnegie melon to throw some spiritual/ecological explanation for the same and asking humans to be cautious with how they deal with nature.

Rest is history,and I prefer it to remain that way ...Much ado about nothing I say ....

To sum it up,thanks for spoiling the night,Mr.Night ......