The Happening. Holy Crap, I Think I Have Brain Cancer.

Post by Joe

 

SPOILER ALERT: This movie is terrible

Like really, really bad.  

And I mean beyond the obvious Illuminati propaganda it contains.  

(But in all seriousness,  I will be giving away the “ending,” so turn back now if you don’t want me to ‘ruin’ this movie for you.)
Here’s a summary:

So we start out on a pleasant morning in Central Park.  Suddenly, everything turns to crap!  People just start like… standing there.  Then some girl stabs herself in the neck.  What?  Anyway, we press on.  

The next scene is a bunch of construction workers standing around talking and telling jokes (These guys must work for the department of transportation.  Am I right?) when one of their crew members plummets to the ground a few feet away.  They respond by walking to him, tearing up a bit, and calmly radio-ing for an ambulance.  That’s right; don’t check his vitals, don’t attempt resuscitation, don’t look up to see why he fell (and if something else might fall on YOU.)  Some more guys fall, and these New York City construction workers respond by crying and being useless.

Next we get to meet Mark Wahburgs character, a Philadelphia school district science teacher named Happy McTheHappeningerson.  (I might have that wrong.) Happy is right in the middle of talking about bees and hitting on a male student in front of the rest of the class when he is interrupted by the vice principal, who explains that <plot device>

Zoey Deschanel, Happy’s Wife, is watching her TV as news reporter explains that this strange behavior is caused by a  strange chemical.  A neurotoxin, specifically.  One that blocks the “self preservation instinct.”   Because, apparently, every human being on the planet is in a constant struggle with themselves to not commit a violent, bloody, and creative suicide, and we are all only one little chemical away from going through with it.  

Suddenly <plot device>

Happy, his wife, John Leguizamo and his daughter are on a train to the country.  But then the train stops in East Bumblefuck, PA.  Why?  Because “we’ve lost contact….  with EVERYBODY!”  (It should be noted that through the entire movie, it’s ONLY the northeastern U.S. that’s affected by this….  happening.  So by everybody, they mean everybody except most of the continental U.S.)  I mean, what would you do?  It’s not like there’s a federal agency they can contact for help in situations like this.

So anyway they all pile into a diner with a bunch of locals when <apple iPhone commercial><ominous news report> <cause for panic> and everyone flees, heading west and away from whatever’s happening, leaving only Happy’s group at the diner. (Based on the fact that the diner was packed with people from the train, and that almost nobody with a car was willing to give rides, one can only assume that Happy’s group was the only one on the train that forgot to pack their car.  Well, if you ask me, that’s just poor planning, and they deserve whatever they get.)

But they get a lucky break when they are offered a ride by a kindly psychotic couple.  Why psychotic?  Because they claim that  1) This is a result of us destroying our environment.  2) This is all being caused by trees.  3) Plants are self aware  4) Plants talk to each other.  5) Plants can choose to evolve at will.  And the crazy part?  They are right!  They’re right!  Its Trees.  The bad guy in The Happening is TREES!  TREES!  TREES! 

Self aware, planning, plotting, talking, murderous fucking trees.  That can, apparently, evolved whenever they fucking feel like it.

 Guess what?  I’m self aware.  I can respond to stimulus, communicate, perceive a threat.  Know what I can’t do?  Evolve super powers on a whim.

So they all go with the crazy people, except John Leguizamo, who gets into a totally air-tight jeep (except for a 1 inch tear in the cloth top) which proceeds to drive into a tree in New Jersey.  Guess your plan backfired, you leafy fucker!

So anyway, once the cast realizes the trees are out to get them, they do the logical thing.  They head for the city, where there are so few trees that they should be easy to avoid, right?  Nope, they head for wilderness.

Wait, what?  

You see, the trees only attack large groups of people, so as long as they split up into small enough groups, they’ll be perfectly safe from all the trees if they hide IN THE FUCKING WOODS.

Except the trees start going after smaller and smaller groups of people (surprise).  Right about the time Happy realizes this he says “we just have to stay ahead of the wind.”  And with that, the wind changes direction.  Holy SHIT!  The trees control the wind!

Happy’s group briefly takes refuge in a model home, which just so happens to be right next a giant subtle billboard that subtly says YOU DESERVE THIS! Got that?  Its a billboard that, in the movie, is advertising the coming housing development.  But it reality, its oh-so-subtle statement that this entire debacle is our fault.

I should probably say that again, because its really fucking subtle.

The YOU DESERVE THIS billboard has TWO (count ‘em) meanings, one of which is a quite reminder to the audience that if we don’t clean up our act, all the trees will get super-powers and become murderous dicks.

Anyway, the movie drags on, people keep dying, and Happy’s group stays small enough to skirt the attacks.  Until the trees start attacking individual people.  Now what?  Well, um, nothing actually.  They hid in the basement for a while, then say ‘fuck it,’ and go outside.  Lucky for them, everything is over.  Yeah, just like that.  For no reason.

Fade to black.

Fade back in.  Its three months later, and Happy got his wife pregnant, and then sends John’s daughter off to school.  And in the back ground- trees!

Hold on. 

Back in the 70s, after JAWS was released, people went on freaking shark killing benders.  Hundreds of sharks were killed.  In response to a fictional movie.  About one fictional shark.  That killed half a dozen fictional people.  Why?  Because people are dump, reactionary, and prone to panic.  If there is one thing you can depend on the public to do, its take a knee-jerk reaction way too far.  Your telling me that after all the trees slaughtered half the population of the north east, nobody decided to cut the fuckers down?

Yeah, I know you need trees to breath and, you know, live.  But have you ever heard of NIMBY?  It stands for Not In My BackYard.  It basically applies to anything that people deem unpleasant, but that that society as a whole still understands to be important.  Things like landfills, power plants, sewage treatment plants, and prisons.  And (I’m just guess here) murderous fucking super-powered trees.  It seems unlikely that only three months after slaughtering thousands, if not millions, of innocent people, there would be even one tree standing within 100 miles of any populated area unless it was protected by armed guards.

Anyway, Happy’s wife is pregnant.  Life is returning to normal.  Hazzah!  What’s this?  A news report?  I hope it will neatly  wrap up any loose ends that didn’t come across through story telling and billboards?  Oh, lucky us, it does.

It seems that it WAS caused by the trees (Got that?  They’ve only said it 4 dozen times so far, so it’s kind of like some guy running out at the end of a Godzilla movie shouting “A BIG LIZARD DID THIS!”) and that they have found the chemical in several plant species.  So apparently any plant could, at any time and without warning, kill you because it fucking feels like it.  And apparently everyone is cool with this.  Then comes what is possibly the dumbest line in the entire movie.

But first, lets take a step back.  In a movie where plants are self aware and intentionally evolve the ability to release a chemical which turns people into suicidal zombies so that they can launch a coordinated attack on the Northeastern United States as a defense against humanity’s utter disregard for the environment…..  This is the dumbest line.  Yeah.  Buckle your seatbelt.

The host of this news show asked the expert guest “Why did it happen?”

The expert responds “Well this is just my theory, but I think it was a warning.  We need to clean up our act.” (in case the billboard was too far below your radar.  This is the cinematic equivalent of M Night Shyamalan elbowing you in the ribs and winking while whispering “Get it?” over and over)

Host: “But it was only one attack.  I could buy that if there had been two, in different places.  But there was only one.”

WHAT?  On what planet does that make sense?  What kind of disconnect does this guy have?  ”Ok, the glowing red burner on the stove was hot ONCE, but that doesn’t prove anything…”  Either you can get your head around the batshit insane premise of this movie or you can’t.  What on earth does it happening twice in two locations have to do with anything?

We are left to ponder this as the screen fades to black, again.

 

Fade back.  Yeah, seriously.

Now we’re in France.  Or Quebec.  Or Epcot Center.  Or somewhere else where people speak French.  Whatever.  Anyway, there are French people and trees.  Just try and guess what happens…

If you said a brief respite from the total affront to logic, reason, and the film industry, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Yeah, it starts to happen again.  It seems that in addition to being comic book super-villains, trees also watch CNN.

Fade to black.  For the THIRD FUCKING TIME.

And that’s it.  Finally.  Now there are plenty of unanswered questions, gaping plot holes, etc left un-addressed by the above summary.  If you think I was hard on it, then watch it for yourself.  But still, one major question remains for me:  Why not just poison?

If we assume trees can perceive us as a threat, communicate with each other, and develop abilities at will, then why not just get poison?  There are plenty of things in nature that are poisonous.  And its usually pretty damn effective.  The whole “prevent the self preservation instinct” seems like a pretty ineffective way to arrive at the goal of killing people.  

Even if you decide you want to be a bit more creative than just poison, why not a chemical that causes severe nausea or appetite suppression.  That way, everyone slowly starves to death.  Or a chemical that causes sever, debilitating depression.  That way a few will kill themselves, while the rest will just lose interest in everything as their world rots around them.

And while we’re on the subject, removing the instinct of self preservation does not immediately lead to suicide.  If you have a friend who is cheap, and you take away the “cheap instinct,” they don’t instantly liquidate all their assets, make a big cash pile, and then set it on fire.  They would become free-er with their money, but they wouldn’t actively seek poverty.

The same goes with the lose of the self-preservation instinct.  Someone without it might be willing to run across a busy interstate highway (assuming they had a reason to) but they wouldn’t turn on farm equipment and then lie down in front of it (unless they really wanted to see what the underside of a running lawn-mower looks like.)

Anyway, I think its fair to say that this movie ranks with ‘Batman & Robin’ and ‘The Wicker-man’ as being among the worst movies of this generation.  If you truly enjoy watching bad movies, then don’t rent this one, buy it.  In fact, buy two copies, and frame one.  Because The Happening is bad. B. A. D. Bad.

Check it to Wreck it