the environment strikes back

i wish people would give mr. shyamalan a break. he's never going to make another sixth sense, so stop waiting for it! i'm not saying the sixth sense was a fluke, because it wasn't. it was a well-thought out masterpiece. but you can't compare every movie he does from now on to his first. that's unfair. and ridiculous. i think his movies show that he's not a one trick pony. he's a storyteller. he tells familiar stories from new perspectives, twists the plot a bit and throws in a handful of suspense and thrills for good fun.

in the happening shyamalan takes the story of a unseen, mysterious natural killer and applies his standard formula to it. the story is told from the point of view of an intelligent teacher, instead of a group of dumb, beautiful teenagers. he pretty much figures out the cause of the mass suicides on his own, where in another movie the teenagers would've heard it on the crackling radio inside the tent they are camping out in. in the typical movie the environment is attacking humans, whereas in the happening, the environment is protecting itself. see how a different perspective can change a movie entirely!? shyamalan could have told an equally effective story without explicitly showing the killings, but the neck piercing/bullet to the head/lawn mower food are this movies' ghost under the table/alien hand in the grate/monster in grass waiting to scare the shit out of you. i'm not saying the deaths were gratuitous, they were just the flash and bang aspect of the movie.

i got really pissed when i read that critics were giving this movie exceptionally low ratings and writing it off as some cautionary-preachy green movie. there were definitely elements of that but i honestly don't believe that shyamalan wrote the movie thinking that it was going to be some massive slap in the forehead for the masses and we were all suddenly going to stop polluting and start driving eco-friendly cars. no one in hollywood is that delusional or self-centered. ok that's not true, but what i'm trying to say is that shyamalan is not just pulling bullshit out of his ass. nature is a living organism and has the same evolutionary capabilities as humans and other animals. he's just pointing out the "what-if" option and creating a story with it.

if you like a good story, with a solid plot, interesting characters and twist here or there, then you should at least give the happening a chance. if you are just interested in a whip-lash inducing turn at the end, you will be disappointed and should go back to 1999 and re-watch the sixth sense for the first time.

the happening :: b