Movie Review, “The Happening” (2008)

Movie Review, “The Happening” (2008)

There’s nothing here.  Well, at least it appears so.  A film like this presents us with information without managing to create art.  Visuals in this film are bland, plain, and boring.  When a director is presenting us with a theory about the end of the world we deserve lots of eye candy and neat features in relation to the problem.  Here, if I wasn’t fluent in English as a native, I wouldn’t know what happened, what occurred, and what transgressed.  “The Happening” can indicate in subtle manner the horror of disease-giving trees and I found potential for this storyline; that’s because, with art, anything should be possible unless we’re hesitant about expressing those dramas on the forces of nature.  Imagine if the trees moved faster, if the bushes moved faster, if the leaves moved faster, if the clouds moved faster, all in wild colors of darkness in our approach to a future movie’s presentation; then, we’d see something even half more fantastic than this current film.  Art is often about drifting away from reality.  However, in “The Happening”, everything is too real and serious for there to be any harmony in our current understanding of the fields of science and pushy critics have quickly dismissed the movie’s probable scientific theories.  We’re just so used to seeing something beautiful as opposed to a bland movie.  Camera angles in the film become weak and unimpressive in terms of horror because all of this chaos is going on in the East of United States and no image, no visual, really convinces me of the frightening conclusions; hey, even the love story has little to speak for itself due to confusion, disorientation, and true colors of reality.  But how do we know if critics mean well on the horror?  That is, how could we just treat this with a laugh or two?  I think reality in general makes us nervous when something goes wrong.  We might laugh out of arrogance or take things lightly when reality is staring at us in the face; maybe this film would’ve just been better for a home-only program on Public Broadcasting.  Throughout the whole film (one hour and thirty minutes) I only saw one frightening scene with the trees and nature blowing in the wind.  That kind of effect lasted only 1 minute but I was intrigued to see more of the same, high power of nature; instead, we’re left with barely a glimpse into the true powers of nature.  Guys!  Move the camera around!  We need expert photography and filming to become convinced about the horrific, scientific possibility.