THE HAPPENING starts out great only to slowly end with a whimper. The basic problem is the film has an interesting start only to slowly drag itself down as it runs around in circles. Then the climax needed more things to be HAPPENING. The film has a few scares and chills. It shows a little bit of the paranoia only to have the film drag itself down as we wait for more stuff to be HAPPENING. Even the film's trailers make the viewers think this will be a HAPPENING film. Instead it's not. I wish rather saw THE STRANGERS again (which is 100 times better than THE HAPPENING). The high point was before the film as I watched trailers for BABYLON A.D. (out on August 29th), THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE (July 25th), BANGKOK DANGEROUS (August 22), TRAITOR (might be one to wait for on DVD), and MIRRORS (August 15th theater release- wait for DVD). Don't even get me started on the bad acting from Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschannel in THE HAPPENING (both actors have done better jobs in other films). Maybe it is time for M. Night to get someone else to write scripts for him to direct instead of doing it himself.

this movie review is (c)6-14-2008 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com  

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