M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening(2008) had great potential. An excellent premise, many other great films under his belt, decent to great actors and actresses cast in the film, high quality production crew, and all the resources any director could hope to have, yet The Happening fell short of expectations most audience members had for Shyamalan's latest film.

I will admit that one of my favourite films is a Shyamalan creation. Perhaps that is why I was personally so disappointed. However, I got similar reactions from many other viewers with whom I spoke about the film. In particular, Mark Walberg's acting was flat all the way through the movie. He has exhibited various emotions in other roles and he characters have never been pigeon-holed to the point of type casting the singer gone actor, so I doubt that he was stuck on how to bring the character to life. Instead I suggest that Shyamalan wanted the teacher to be presented the way he was.

Also the writing was not fully smooth or explanatory. Some of this is Shyamalan's style that draws movie-goers to his films, but this time he never developed the theme of the movie to a point where the audience actually cared.

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS BELOW

There is lots of death in the movie. That may be one of the better features: interesting and gruesome suicides en mass, but alas, rarely does anyone in the film die that has built up a rapport with the audience. Only one main character dies and that is perhaps the best moment of the film simply because it connects several aspects of the story together.

The story itself is weak because the main threat is not truly brought to a head and there is an attempt to shift the horror from the main threat to a smaller threat which fails miserably. There is also supposed to be the shift in the main characters lives as a result of the nightmare in which they find themselves. That should have been very effective, but again, since the characters were flat and the plot was not developed enough to make the audience grasp it fully or even to care, then the choice to keep this conflict vague simply did not work.

There are good things in the film and the concept is fantastic. Shyamalan has proven himself several times before, so The Happening being less than superb is not the end of the line for his movie career. He will have to make the next project stronger to maintain his fan base, but Shyamalan has what it takes. Not every film can be his best movie. The Happening, while it is not Shyamalan's best effort is greater than many other director's top films and it is still a film to watch, but perhaps make this one a rental instead of spending top dollar on the cinematic experience.