Story is everything.
Without a story, there is no movie. Cinema is our modern-day form of storytelling, and without story, "storytelling" doesn't exist.
So when Decadent Sympozium claims, "The script didn't suck. The dialogue was bad and the acting was bad..." that is such a self-refuting statement. Dialogue and action are the script and the script is the story. When the entire script is composed of empty, cheesy dialogue, how do you expect the script to be so profound? I am not saying that Shyamalan cannot write a script, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable remain two of my favorite movies, and two outstanding scripts. I am claiming, however, that The Happening was a complete and utter failure when it comes down the the quality of the story. The script is the foundation for the rest of the movie, and when that fails, so does the rest of the project.
That being said, I completely agree with Cleveland Heep in some of the points that he made. M. Night has created masterpeices through film, that is an undeniable fact. And as much as people would like to say The Happening falls under the category of "amazing," it's simply not true. From an entirely objective standpoint, The Happening remains a bad movie. You don't have to be a film expert to understand that the dialogue was cheesy, the acting was bad, the characters weren't believable, etc. Remember the part in the movie towards the very end When Elliot and Alma go outside to be with eachother "when it all ends?" That scene is supposed to be the climax of the movie. Alma and Elliot finally rekindle they're love, and in that scene we see hope. If the movie ended with them being affected by the happening, and they killed themselves, it would have been a beautiful scene. Except they lived, the screen faded to black and a VO from Elliot says, "I guess the event stopped right before we went outside." That is just sheer laziness. In past films, Shyamalan has proved his writing skills to be creative, smart, and original. Now, Sympozium, if that same scene had been in any other movie not written/directed/produced by your boyhood idol and godhead Shyamalan, you would have found it just as repulsive and unbelievable as I did.
And how does mathematical assimilation and character's names beginning with the letter "j" make The Happening a good fim? It doesn't! It just proves that Shyamalan knows how to integrate symbolism into his art, and it holds no relevence to the overall quality of the film. That was an extremely weak point and pitiful excuse to try to make The Happening seem like a better movie than it was.
Now on a slightly different note, from a cinematographical perspective, The Happening looked great. The shots were unique, yet technical, and the color integration and symbolism was superb. I have always seen Shyamalan as a fantastic visionary. Some of the shots in Unbreakable never cease to amaze me. Like the first scene we see David Dunn, the entire scene is one shot, seen from in between two chairs on a bullet train. Not only did the shot look amazing, but the dialogue and action in the scene revealed a plethora of information about the character. I don't need to re-tell each tremendous shot that Shyamalan has pulled off in his carreer. I could be here all day. The point I'm trying to make is that great shots and outsanding visuals do not make a movie. Sure they look nice, and they reflect the director's knowledgle and hard work that he/she put into his/her film, but they don't determine whether or not a good movie has been made.
Namaste, I couldn't agree more with the first comment that you posted. Most people are disappointed with Shyamalan's films when they walk into the theatre waiting to see some horror flick. Anyone who cares about the films that Shyamalan makes knows that his movies focus on somthing outside of whatever "event" is happening. Signs is about a pastor who lost his faith, not so much about aliens who carve maps into corn-fields somewhere in Philadelphia. The Village is a love story, not so much a story about creatures who live in the nearby forest. Unbreakable is about a man discovering himself and his ultimate purpose, not so much a superhero movie. The Happening not only lacked a creative event for a story to take place in, but it also did a terrible job at showing the love story between Alma and Elliot. Shyamalan is a genius when it comes to writing a story that takes place during a supernatural event, but it's almost as if he's lost that creative ability to come up with those types of events. The Happening also showed me that he's lost the ability to write the deeper, more important story that is focused on throughout the film. The Happening was a disappointment. It had a weak story, an uninteresting event, anemic characters and a feeble plot. The movie doesn't have to be compared to the rest of Shyamalan's films to uphold its crappiness.
I am impatiently waiting for the day for Shyamalan to make his "comeback," so to speak. I know what he is capable of and I know how great of a filmaker he is, although he hasn't been on his "A-game" lately. The Happening was not a strong peice of art. It left many people foiled and unsatisfied. It just wasn't an accurate reflection of Shyamalan's artistic talent that we have seen so many times in the past. You are allowed to dislike the Happening, and be a fan of M. Night at the same time.
