TW,MDMYES: ‘The Happening’
M. Night Shyamalan needs to turn on the AC because this planet is GETTING HOT. Seriously, in case no one has told you in the last 10,000 years about global warming, it’s real. Basically, when we burn fossil fuels like coal and oil, the carbon that gets emitted stays in our atmosphere trapping more and more heat here that otherwise gets reflected and then barfbarfbarfbarfbarf.
“The Happening,” besides being terrible and ridiculous and stupid and terrible, was really just a tacky propaganda film warning us that if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, the world’s plants are going to release a toxin that triggers our brains to make us KILL OURSELVES.
Alright guys, are you ready? Okay, as soon as you get your shoes on, we’ll take a trip to HORRORTOWN, PA where every M. Night movie is filmed and hopefully make some friends along the way.
The movie starts with Mark Wahlberg (doesn’t every movie?), who is a REALLY GOOD high school teacher. He speaks to those kids like their real people, you know? He doesn’t just lecture you, he INVOLVES you. He’s my hero. Snort.
Mark Wahlberg is a science teacher and his teacher bro, John Leguizamo are really good at teaching. They were “Teaching you about things, but also teaching you how to learn” majors at the University of Pennsylvania-School and they now work at Shyamalan High full-time and they love their jobs because they change lives while also having fun. It’s very rewarding.
But then one day, all the teachers get called in to the auditorium (lol) and they get told about a possible terrorist attack in NYC. Basically, a bunch of people are killing themselves for no reason.*
In the worst scene of the movie, we see only the legs of a cab driver who shot himself in the head, then someone else grabs the gun and shoots himself and then another woman grabs the gun and does the same and it’s so stupid!
It’s not so much a classic M. Night twist as it is really, really, thoroughly dumb.
Anyway, Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel are married (?), but she’s a total awkward weirdo who sucks and is definitely in love with Joey from TV’s “Joey,” but whatever. Then they go on the run with John Leguizamo to get away from the toxin and they eventually split up because Johnny Legz has to find his wife in New Jersey, but Marky Mark and Zooey D. have to keep moving so they take Johnny’s daughter with them because parenting.
So Johnny Legz gets to New Jersey and immediately gets toxinated and the driver of his car runs the car into a tree killing everyone in the car oh, EXCEPT JOHN LEGUIZAMO. But it’s okay, because Johnny goes out to the street and kills himself anyway. This movie is fun for the whole family.
I hate this.
Um, so Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel meet a lot of cool people in their journey like an old greenhouse couple that loves hot dogs because of the cool shape and an old, awful spinster who begrudgingly takes them in for a while. That old woman is the worst! She’s always like, “I GUESS I have to give you dinner. I GUESS I should let you stay here.”
Ugh, she sucks.
Hey, here’s an idea. If you’re just gonna be a terrible person and then eventually break windows with your head and if it’s such an effing HASSLE, maybe don’t take on visitors!
Eventually, Mark Wahlberg and Zooey D. decide to risk it all and go outside to be together, and INSTEAD OF DYING, they were crazy lucky because the toxin just left like 15 minutes before they decided to be in love, but I like to imagine that the trees saw how much they loved each other (we’re talking like not at all) and stopped killing everything because LOVE IS REAL.
Essentially, “The Happening” is a crucial warning that if you don’t stop polluting, M. Night Shyamalan’s going to keep making movies. So seriously, donate. Learn more about climate protection at www.repoweramerica.org.
Oh and at one point, Mark Wahlberg ACTUALLY TALKS TO A PLANT.
I give it 5 out of 5 OOPs
*I’m impressed with this toxin. It must’ve impacted the right side of the brain because between running themselves over with giant lawnmowers and getting themselves attacked by lions, these people are killing themselves in very creative ways.