The Happening
by M. Night Shyamalan
List Price:
Our Price: $4.85
You Save: $10.13 (68%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Betty Buckley, John Leguizamo, Mark WahlbergDirector: M. Night Shyamalan
Brand: Fox
Performer: Zooey Deschanel
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-10-07
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The Happening
Movie Review: Five Star Schadenfreude
Summary: 5 Stars
Sometimes a film will hit on all cylinders with great writing, acting, production values and so on. More often, films will falter in one area while making up for the shortcoming in others. And then we have the bottom of the barrel, the crème de la crud like..."The Happening." As four "Razzie" nominations might indicate, "The Happening" is such a cinematic rug burn. Let's have a look-see, shall we?
Nomination: Worst Actor
This one's a toss up. I don't know if the nomination is for Wahlberg (who is convincing as a vulgar, angry man about town in other films) with his one-note furrowed brow and laughably insincere deliveries or for Deschanel with her perpetual watering eyes. Cry, @*#% you, just cry already! Either way you cut it, the couple's de facto adopted child gives the best performance: She says very little before deciding not to speak at all.
Nomination: Worst Screenplay
The plot is riddled with more ragged holes than Courtney Love's debauched colander. For example, a train headed out of Afflicted City mysteriously comes to a stop and deposits its frightened passengers in a small rickety town rather than completing the intended journey. Why? Because the engineer is unable to contact anybody, anywhere. That's not an answer, it's a non sequitur and that's not a plot point, it's a wet willie of an excuse. Or perhaps I'm way off the mark and the next time your engineer's radio goes out, expect to hoof it from Deliverance County back to safety.
But yowza! The snappy repartee written into these actors' mouths! (transcription courtesy of IMDB.com - except for the naughty words which I've disguised)
-Elliot Moore: [shots are heard firing in the distance] Oh no...
-Alma Moore: What "oh no"?
-Elliot Moore: The toxin? The toxin's affecting them?
-Woman in Group: Are those people killing themselves?
-Realtor: You were with the Private, what do we do?
-Alma Moore: We need to do something!
-Elliot Moore: Just let me think...
-Alma Moore: [as shots continually fire in the background] They're dying!
-Elliot Moore: I need a second...
-Realtor: They released it? We're not near the roads!
-Alma Moore: We can't just stand here as uninvolved observers!
-Elliot Moore: I need a second okay? Just give me a second!
-Alma Moore: We're not gonna be one of those @%#holes on the news who watches a crime happen and not do something! We're not @%#holes!
-Elliot Moore: Just a second!
-Woman in Group: There were children in that group!
-Alma Moore: Elliot please tell us what to do!
-Elliot Moore: I need a second okay? Why can't anybody give me a %$#@* second?
What a bunch of @%#holes.
Nomination: Worst Director
Director is a fulltime job, Screenwriter is a fulltime job and Producer is a fulltime job. OK, some have mixed and matched these titles with marvelous results but, of course, they are the exception that proves the rule. It's just possible that "The Happening" has value as a cautionary tale for those who contemplate single-handedly dawning this movie-making trifecta of shame.
Granted, depicting alfalfa as mass murderer is undoubtedly a thorny dilemma, however simply fanning fields of grass in broad daylight fails to create a sense of menace. Had Shyamalan given the matter serious thought he would have realized that unseen root weevils and grasshoppers giving off irritated communal growls could plausibly represent the malevolent weeds' intent - and a Wahlberg/Deschanel duet could have easily supply the growling, whining or simpering sound effect from off screen. Lord knows they do enough of it in front of the camera.
Nomination: Worst Picture
For all the reasons stated earlier.
In truth and in short, "The Happening" stands as a wondrous achievement from every quarter by mistaking $#!@ for Shinola. So much so, that I actually purchased the DVD after witnessing this howlfest firsthand. Five stars for ultimate bottom-feeding pleasure, as guilty a pleasure as it might be.
Summary of The Happening
Stars:Mark Wahlberg, Zooey DeschanelItem Type: DVD Movie
Item Rating: R
Street Date: 10/07/08
Wide Screen: yes
Director Cut: no
Special Edition: no
Language: ENGLISH
Foreign Film: noSubtitles: no
Dubbed: no
Full Frame: no
Re-Release: no
Packaging: Sleeve
You'd expect the end of the world to be no day in the park, but in M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, a day in the park is where the end begins. One otherwise peaceful summer morning, New Yorkers strolling in Central Park come to a halt in unison, then begin killing themselves by any means at hand. At a high-rise construction site a few blocks over, it's raining bodies as workers step off girders into space. And all the while, the city is so quiet you can hear the gentle breeze in the trees. That breeze carries a neurotoxin, and what or who put it there (terrorists?) is a question raised periodically as the film unfolds. But the question that really matters is how and whether anybody in the Middle Atlantic states is going to stay alive. The Happening is Shyamalan's best film since The Sixth Sense, partly because he avoids the kind of egregious misjudgment that derailed The Village and Lady in the Water, but mostly because the whole thing has been structured and imagined to keep faith with the point of view of regular, unheroic folks confronted with a mammoth crisis. Focal characters are a Philadelphia high-school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg, excellent), his wife (Zooey Deschanel) and math-teacher colleague (John Leguizamo), and the latter?s little girl (Ashlyn Sanchez). Instinct says get out of the cities and move west; most of the film takes place in the delicately picturesque Pennsylvania countryside, with menace hovering somewhere in the haze. There are no special effects (apart from a wind machine and some breakaway glass), but the movie manages to be deeply unsettling in the matter-of-factness of its storytelling. Especially effective is its feel for what we might call the surrealism of banality. One warning sign that someone has been infected by the neurotoxin is irrational or erratic speech and behavior, yet Shyamalan has a genius for dialogue that sounds normal and everyday as it's spoken, yet flies apart grenade-like a second later as its logic (or illogic) sinks in. Then there's Deschanel's eye-rolling dodginess about the messages some guy has been leaving on her cellphone. Or the fellow (Frank Collis) who addresses his greenhouse plants as though they were his children--has a stray toxic zephyr wafted his way, or is this just his idea of normal? --Richard T. Jameson
Beyond The Happening on DVD
 Jumper on DVD |  Street Kings on DVD |  Deception on DVD |
Stills from The Happening (Click for larger image)
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
Similar DVD Movies
DevilUNI; Release date: 2010-12-21; DVD
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
Four Brothers (Special Collector's Edition)PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2005-12-20; Published: 2005-12-01; DVD
Best price: $2.21
Price in other shops:
KnowingCAGE,NICOLAS; Release date: 2009-07-07; Published: 2009-07-01; DVD
Best price: $5.50
Price in other shops:
We Own the NightSony; Release date: 2008-02-12; DVD
Best price: $1.98
Price in other shops:
FearNBC Universal; Release date: 1998-10-27; DVD
Best price: $4.26
Price in other shops:
The Village (Widescreen Vista Series)Buena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2005-01-11; Published: 2005-01-01; DVD
Best price: $4.27
Price in other shops:
Lady in the Water (Widescreen Edition)GIAMATTI,PAUL; Release date: 2006-12-19; Published: 2006-12-01; DVD
Best price: $1.00
Price in other shops:
Unbreakable (Two-Disc Vista Series)Buena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2001-06-26; DVD
Best price: $5.98
Price in other shops:
Max PayneFOX; Release date: 2009-01-20; Published: 2009-01-01; DVD
Best price: $3.20
Price in other shops:
SignsDIS; Release date: 2003-01-07; DVD
Best price: $2.95
Price in other shops: