[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img] As the title, “The Happening,” says, something does  happen in M. Night Shyamalan’s  latest offering: we reach the end of the road for Shyamalan’s aspirations of being a latter-day Hitchcock by way of Rod Serling. The cross-pollination of “The Birds” with “28 Weeks Later” and “The Twilight Zone” results in, arguably,  the worst film in Shyamalan’s portfolio to date and, perhaps, the death of his cachet. The Shyamalan brand has lost its luster. A shame.

Like “The Village,” “The Happening” is doomed by an idée fixe that confuses the shock value of its premise with storytelling depth. Had the film been a science fiction movie – fiction about science and its consequences – the idea of a mysterious, potentially apocalyptic phenomenon provoking an epidemic of suicides could have been fascinating and thought-provoking rather than merely creepy. But the same kind of agenda-driven filmmaking that undid “Lady in the Water” hollows out “The Happening,” giving it a tone of shrill, unsubtle moralizing that borders on hysteria. Science has its limitations, Shyamalan’s  characters insist. In a hammer of a metaphor, Mark Wahlberg’s science teacher, Elliot, solicits from his class opinions as to why bee colonies are collapsing. He beams approvingly when a student replies that some phenomena are merely acts of nature that will never be fully understood. “We will fail to acknowledge that there are forces at work beyond our understanding,” says Elliot. “To be a scientist, you must have a respectful awe for the laws of nature.” Never mind that seeking explanations for natural phenomena is not mutually exclusive with having an awe for said phenomena; Shyamalan has a point to make.

For all his superficial efforts at putting science in its place in favour of mystery-mongering, he does the very thing his premise poo-poos: he simulates an explanation. The characters hem and haw. They waffle in an attempt to avoid seeming like they’re offering anything definitive to make sense of the bizarre, often gruesome, acts of self-destruction. Yet there is an understanding, a moral, something to free audiences from the delirious effects of ambiguity. There is also the realization that what really happens in “The Happening” is the gradual implosion of mystery and coherence into nonsense. While Shymalan foregoes his predilection for that last-minute twist, he also leaves the tension out of the story by making sense of the “happening” relatively early in the film. Without an arcing mystery, the film consists of diluted survival-horror suspense and lazily characterized protagonists.

There are some effective scenes. Shyamalan capitalizes nicely on the fundamentally unsettling effect of watching people kill themselves with robotic-like indifference, and there are times when the dread of something apocalyptic is visceral. But his directing is ultimately listless, even careless in parts (Jim Emerson explores the film’s technical ineptness in depth in his blog). He strikes no connection with the cast, resulting in curiously unengaged performances from the film’s leads. Wahlberg is always a likeable Everyman sort of actor, capable of bearing a great deal of gravitas on his shoulders, but even his intrinsic appeal, hindered by a pairing with a zombie-like Zooey Deschanel, doesn’t overcome the film’s blahs. Never mind everyone else.

It’s a good thing that Shyamalan’s next film is an adaptation of the popular animated series “Avatar: the Last Airbender.” Perhaps it’s just the thing needed to reboot the Shymalan brand.

Entertainment Value: no stars

Technical Quality: no stars

The Happening. Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel and John Leguizama. 91 minutes. Rated R (for violent and disturbing images)

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