my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film Handlers' Movie Reviews   » The Happening (Page 2)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3

Author Topic: The Happening Thomas Pitt Master Film Handler Posts: 266 From: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK Registered: May 2007 posted 06-16-2008 03:18 PM                     Cinema: Bradford Cineworld Screen 11 Format: 35mm w/Dolby Digital Presentation problems: Picture shook irregularly; particularly bad in the 2nd reel. It was as if someone was adjusting the framing control slightly up and down at random. Well, it wasn't a 'disaster' of a movie like I expected from the Rottentomatoes reviews, but it wasn't that good either. The premise was fairly good, but the film was too long and the acting mediocre. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed it enough not to walk out. Something like this would be more suited to a half-hour episode of some TV sci-fi series, not a whole movie! I'm a bit concerned about the ending though - do they plan a sequel to this movie? I don't think you could squeeze any more out of this premise than has already been done!  |  IP: Logged Geena Phillips Expert Film Handler Posts: 198 From: Norcross, GA / USA Registered: Apr 2006 posted 06-16-2008 04:12 PM                        Jumping Xenu on a pogo stick, this thing is AWFUL. At least there'll be one hit comedy this summer after all.  |  IP: Logged Chad M Calpito Master Film Handler Posts: 435 From: San Diego, CA Registered: Apr 2006 posted 06-16-2008 05:40 PM                        Since I saw the trailers to this film, I figured I would check this movie out. But, now, I have doubts that I will after reading this forum.  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 06-17-2008 10:39 PM                        CINEMA: Cinemark Movies 12, Ames, IA AUDITORIUM: 7 PRESENTATION: 35mm/Mystery Meat Crapposonic audio PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: The audio was HIDEOUS RATING: One and one half star (out of four) WARNING: "You're at the place where the killers meet to decide what to do with the Spoilers." THE PLOT: New Yorkers read Bobby and Mark's Blu-ray debate on Film-Tech and start killing themselves. Wackiness ensues. I read somewhere that all Shyamalan wanted to get out of this picture was his own version of a low-budget B-movie slasher flick. If you know that going in, you might give him some breathing room. But he really didn't do a good job of translating that to the screen. The acting was crap (I suspect it was supposed to be so), the visuals were uninteresting by Shyamalan's standards, and the SHOCKING SWERVE we get at the end of every Shyamalan movie isn't here at all. Good idea, poorly executed.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-17-2008 11:20 PM                        I wish M. Night would make a comedy with a surprise twist at the end. Like all the characters die in a car crash or something. He's becoming one of those directors whose trailers are better than his movies.  |  IP: Logged Michael Gonzalez Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 790 From: Grand Island , NE USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 06-17-2008 11:25 PM                     Ugh. I bit the bullet and finally saw this and it is with out a doubt the most boring movie I have ever sat through. Maybe 10 minutes of the movie was somewhat interesting but even that is a stretch. I was going to list a bunch of stupid things from the film but it is not even worth the effort. I think it is time for Mr. Shyamalan to decide if he is going to be a director (applying his "vision" to someone else's script) or a film writer (with another director applying their vision to Shyamaln's script) because he no longer seems capable of doing both. Unless he finally does a sequel to "Unbreakable" as originally planned, I will probably have no interest in seeing another one of his films. What the "killer" should have looked liked...  |  IP: Logged Mark Ogden Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 943 From: Little Falls, N.J. Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-18-2008 07:12 AM                     Killer trees with faces? It's been done.  |  IP: Logged Robert Crabtree Film Handler Posts: 91 From: Largo, FL Registered: May 2008 posted 06-20-2008 01:48 AM                     So horrible...the only scary part was everytime I saw John Leguizamo's teeth... something fanglike about them. Did anyone else fight back the urge to start singing "It's Rainin' Men" in the beginning?  |  IP: Logged Brian Michael Weidemann Expert cat molester Posts: 944 From: Costa Mesa, CA United States Registered: Feb 2004 posted 06-20-2008 03:48 AM                        Some of us don't fight it.  |  IP: Logged Andy Frodsham Expert Film Handler Posts: 238 From: Stoke on Trent, Staffs, UK Registered: Nov 2006 posted 06-22-2008 02:38 PM                     Thank Goodness - I was starting to believe it was just me! I think his films are simplistic and highly predictable. I think SIGNS is the only half-decent film he has made and that was largely due to a solid cast!  |  IP: Logged Michael Gonzalez Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 790 From: Grand Island , NE USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 06-22-2008 05:46 PM                     quote: I think SIGNS is the only half-decent film he has made and that was largely due to a solid cast! If you havent already, you should check out the Signs review thread. I know I took a pretty good beating for liking and trying to defend that film [ 06-23-2008, 03:58 PM: Message edited by: Michael Gonzalez ]  |  IP: Logged Michael Brown Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1522 From: Bradford, England Registered: May 2001 posted 06-23-2008 08:37 PM                     Vue Leeds The Light ,Screen 11, 35mm SRD (and like Thomas, very shakey image , but this was on the ads and trailers as well as the feature) 90 minutes of junk. I don't mind some of Shymalan's other work (I'll spend all day defending 'The Village') but this was awfull. At least it was an hour shorter than Speed Racer. And I live in the UK where we get the edited version (so no woman sticked a rod in her neck and no tiger biting a guys arm off). But we do get all the terrible acting.  |  IP: Logged Stu Jamieson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 524 From: Buccan, Qld, Australia Registered: Jan 2008 posted 06-25-2008 08:21 AM                     What?!? Jeez, man, you guys really know how to do the censorship thing! Chalk one up for Mary Whitehouse, God luv 'er. I thought things were looking up over there??  |  IP: Logged Stu Jamieson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 524 From: Buccan, Qld, Australia Registered: Jan 2008 posted 06-28-2008 07:21 AM                     Over the last 10 years it's seems I've often found myself in the role of M. Night Shyamalan's public defender against the detractors who doubt the man's film making talent. While it's certainly true that the quality of his films have been in steady decline from the brilliant pinnacle of The Sixth Sense to the somewhat shaky Lady In the Water, I've always maintained that Shyamalan's "bad" films are better than most other directors' good ones. It seems that with The Happening, however, I must concede defeat as this is a poor film by Shyamalan's standards and, at best, a very average film by any other standard. After all his intriguing movies to date, with The Happening Shyamalan delivers a stock standard disaster flick and not a very good one at that. The solution to the crisis which afflicts this tale is provided by a crazy botanist about half an hour into the story. This theory is then pondered by our science teacher hero, Mark Wahlberg, for next hour who finally concludes (along with the scientific community at large) that the crazy man's theory was indeed correct. And herein lies the problem: the answer is given at the start of the film and the narrative fails to provide anything new from this point forward. The films credibility is not helped by a supremely silly premise. But other movies have been made with more absurd premises than this and still worked; the trick is to make your ridiculous supposition believable on some level. Shyamalan's idea is unconvincing at the start and it still fails to convince by the end. Shyamalan's characters are also unconvincing and his lack of character detail makes the relationships between them perplexing. We never learn enough about Wahlberg to trust that he knows what he's talking about and so when he lectures us on scientific principles, it feels like he's teaching us to suck eggs. Zooey Deschanel begins the film looking like a neurotic, whiny, simpleton but we soon learn that she is not so. So why is she portrayed this way to begin with? And apart from being a maths teacher, we have no idea who John Leguizamo is except that his character exists only to thrust an orphan into the story. Placing the story's twist at the beginning of the narrative is certainly curious and provocative but it nullifies the point of having a twist. Maybe the real twist to this film is that Shyamalan, the renowned "Master of Twists", made a movie without one. But if this is so, he doesn't pull it off. Shyamalan may be good writer and director but he's clearly not that good! 5 out of 10  |  IP: Logged Geena Phillips Expert Film Handler Posts: 198 From: Norcross, GA / USA Registered: Apr 2006 posted 06-28-2008 04:17 PM                        I feel for the guy, just because he's apparently so utterly without friends that he had not one person who could say to him, "Listen, M.? I'm not a film scholar or anything, but I'm pretty sure that an hour-and-a-half of people trying to outrun the fucking breeze is just not that visually arresting."  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.