Posted by
Catmman on Saturday, June 14, 2008 6:43:28 PM
Yes campers, "nature" finally avenges itself against mankind!
Spoiler Alert for all that follows...
Your reading your favorite novel in Central Park. Your sitting chatting with a dear friend who is also browsing a book.
You heart a faint scream! You turn to look toward the source of the scream. As you look around, you notice other people...just standing there. No one moving. No one speaking.
You turn to your friend and ask if they are seeing this stuff. Your friend doesn't seem to hear you...
Your friend then puills a very long hair pin from her done up hair and plunges it into her throat!!!
So begins "The Happening", M. Night Shyamalan's newest feature film.
This movie is so full of anti-human propaganda, I hardly know where to begin.
It seems "nature" has had enough of us pesky humans. Apparently, plants - yes plants - are bound and determined to remove us (humans), the scourge of all that is Good, from Mother Earth. They do this by releasing "some type of neuro-toxin" into the air. Once humans are exposed to this toxin, the brain short circuits and we begin offing ourselves in the most heinous ways immaginable. This toxin takes out only humans BTW, animals are OK. Go figure.
Oh, it's only just begun here people...
The characterization really is irrelevant at this point I think, but I'll digress briefly into the minutia of other film stuff besides the plot. The characters seems a bit contrived. There isn't a whole lot of depth in their development, but in this plot you aren't really missing anything. There is good suspense - there is no time wasted on plot development. The killing starts right at the beginning of the movie. The suspense is good at points and there are some points where your surprised. That's all the good stuff I have to say about the movie. There is no surprise twist in this movie - sorry. So if you were looking for something like that to make the movie turn out better - it ain't there. Yes, that's the good stuff.
OK, let's get some more minutia out of the way - people go about offing themselves using: firearms (of course), hair care products, jumping off of buildings, driving their vehicles into trees (though this seems counter productive to the plants doing the killing. I mean honestly, if you were a tree releasing toxins to kill people would you really want them driving their cars into you as a means unto your ends?), driving their own heads through glass windows, being shot by rural Pennsylvania "gun clingers" (yes, I'm serious), and one guy starting a landscaping lawnmower (you know, one of those BIG ones) and allowing himself to be run over by it (and this one isn't even as good as the scene in "Maximum Overdrive" where the little league kid gets run over by the pavement roller - 'member?) . OK, the death scene stuff is out of the way. Let's get back to the symbolism.
Large shots of nuclear power plants in the background (you know, nukes are BAD after all). A large billboard (advertising a new subdivision our protagonists get sidetracked in briefly) part of which reads "We deserve this...". Talk of how bees have been disappearing around the world with no explanation (kids in a high school biology classroom offering answers to this particular dilemma by blaming global warming and pollution). TV and radio broadcasts also mentioning the high percentage of nuclear power plants in the northeastern US (where "The Happening" happens). And there is your usual it's the "government or CIA" derangement. I mean, the only thing which was missed was some kind of "FEMA is blowing it" reference. OK, breath...
Also it seems our new plant overlords (ALL PRAISE BE TO THE MIGHTY OAK AND ASH - in case they read this...) don't discriminate either. A friendly nursery owner and his wife are murdered (and this guy went out of his way to talk to the plants in his nursery before trying to escape "The Happening") but he has some type of incredible craving for hotdogs, making him a meateater - therefore not worthy of life in the plants eyes (I would think the Vegans would be taking it in the backside from the plant life.) A reclusive, wacked out old lady who lives out in the country (off the grid BTW, who grows her own food, doesn't use electricity, etc.) is the one who the plants command to bash her head, first into a wall, then through a glass window - effectively ending her rape of the natural world (there is a photo of her when she was younger, with a military beau. Perhaps her crime was supporting the military industrial complex by falling in love with an airman?)
I'm sure your getting the picture by now.
Let's not forget however the end of the film. A TV broadcast where an anchorman is interviewing a scientist. They are talking about "The Happening" three months post "happen" (the "happening" having lasted only 24 hours you see). The scientist is railing that this was nature's warning, that nature doesn't take kindly to how we evil humans are treating the planet. The anchor rebuts that yes, maybe the scientist could be right, but "skeptics" (now hear this all of you fellow AGW 'deniers') claim this was some type of natural anomolous occurence, since it hadn't "happened" anywhere else, just in the northeastern part of the US.
Wait for it...the movie ends with the beginning of another "Happening" somewhere in Europe - Paris I believe - since the folks are speaking french talk. The last words of the movie? "Mon Dieu...!" Yes, those were the last words of this movie. Mon dieu indeed.
One other thing I thought of just a bit ago. "The Happening" begins in major metropolitan areas: New York City (naturally), Philadelphia. But it begins in those cities parks. You know, the places in these areas mankind has set aside just for nature since we've recognised the need for nature in our lives - but the plants don't give a damn. Some gratitude there huh? Of course the greater message is that ALL of the earth belongs to "nature". Mankind in just intruding. Get the point?!
Although a few squadrons of aircraft loaded with Agent Orange launched as a retaliatory strike seem to be out of the equation. Perhaps another message is that mankind is impotent in the face of nature's wrath? If that is the case, how in the world can plants have it in for us for what we are supposedly doing to the planet? I mean, if our protagonist couldn't grab a bottle of Roundup and strike back, how much power do we really have to adversely affect the planet to begin with?
So then what exactly were the plants so pissed off at to begin with?!
I know. I'm overthinking this.
Hollywood has found a niche where they can sell their tripe. Anti-war movies all bomb at the box office. "Natrure strikes back" movies though are good bank (remember "The Day After Tomorrow"?! I count myself an idiot for actually contributing to the bottom line for this garbage. I remember when I could watch a movie just to be entertained and for the fun (or scare) of it. Why can't filmakers go back to those days?
I do take some comfort in doing all the driving it took to get me and the tribe to the theater though. And tomorrow is Father's Day, with massive grillage in store, so...get ready for a massive carbon footprint!!
BWAHAHAHAHA...wait...
Plants "breathe" CO2. They would enjoy a larger carbon footprint.
Right?