Halos and More

A comic is up, but rather than talking about it I’d like to join Roger Ebert as one of the few people who appreciate M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie The Happening. There seems to be a general consensus (the movie’s at 17% on Rotten Tomatoes) that Shyamalan’s latest effort is a step up from Lady In the Water but still a fairly worthless piece of drivel with bad acting and worse writing.

I happened (no pun intended) to read one review which called The Happening “a monster movie badly in need of a monster.” I think that illustrates exactly why so many people will hate the darn thing: it’s NOT a monster movie. That’s actually the whole point: the closest thing we get to a monster in the whole movie is a very strange old lady who simultaneously saves and nearly destroys the protagonists.

Of course, I’m biased. I adore Zooey Deschanel and Mark Whalberg, so you’ll never get me to admit the movie was badly acted. I also adore M. Night Shyamalan and his Hitchcock-inspired film making. Lady in the Water was, perhaps, not the best thing I’d ever seen (although I still liked it more than the critics) — ditto The Village. But I was not on board with everyone who criticized Unbreakable and Signs, which I really enjoyed. People accused Signs of having a deux ex machina ending, which shows their ignorance of the term — it refers to ancient Greek theatre where the playwright, having basically written himself into a corner a la Who Shot J.R.? would have a god descend from a machine to save the day.

In Signs, Shyamalan doesn’t write himself into the corner. He spends the entire movie carefully working his way there.

I feel bad for the guy: almost every review says the same thing, “not the Sixth Sense.” No, it isn’t. I’m sure if he’d known what The Sixth Sense was letting him in for he’d never have made the darn thing.
At any rate, go see the movie and decide for yourself. If you hate it fair enough, but don’t trust the critics on this one.