The Happening – A Review

Sometimes I try to picture M. Night Shyamalan’s producers, standing around dumbfounded as he takes a good premise and meticulously   f—s it up. Ever since he made The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan has been refining what was bad about that movie (the portentousness, the hollow profundity) and setting aside the good. Credit where credit is due, he got a good performance out of Bruce Willis once upon a time. But five movies later, anyone, everyone – his producers included – would have to conclude, reluctantly, that M. Night Shyamalan has lost it. The Happening is the most abysmal movie I’ve seen this year. And this is the year I saw Southland Tales.