I went to my local Rave theatre this weekend to see “The Happening”. I was intrigued by some of the previews of the movie I had seen earlier in the week and casually mentioned to my daughter that I wouldn’t mind seeing “The Happening”. This triggered my daughter into oooh It’s Father’s Day mode so she treated me to a night at the movies. We took the evening and had dinner at the Outback just down the road from the Jefferson Point Rave Theater. After dinner we proceeded to the movie theater for a nice evening. The movie started out pretty cool with mysterious happenings going on starting in Central Park and spreading throughout the East coast cities. The movie theater was quite packed and gasps, sighs, and laugh were present throughout the entire movie adding to the movie going atmosphere. There were several parts in the movie that were very graphic. The movie had you wondering all the time exactly what was happening and why with all the mass suicides. Overall the acting by star Mark Wahlberg and others was sub par in my opinion. The movie wasn’t the worst I have ever seen but was far from the best movie. The worst part of the movie was the ending. I had a sneaky suspicion throughout the movie as to how it was going to end and I was right. It was a tree hugger, environmentalist, attempt at bringing a warning to the movie going public. Now I don’t mind movies with a point or a moral, but I do have a problem with people trying to instill fear into people over the environment. So my overall take of the move is that you’ll love it if your an global warming, man is destroying the environment type of person, otherwise I’d say its a movie you definitely can just wait for it to hit DVD.
This kind of environmental preachy movie has been around since at least the 1950’s. Them, with the giant ants, was actually a much better movie than The Happening. I think the Attack of the Giant Gila Monster was a better ‘nature gone wild movie’. You can entertain and be preachy and scientifically inaccurate at the same time but The Happening isn’t entertaining, just terribly boring. One reason to elect a democrat like Obama president is that Hollywood will stop making these dreadful preachy movies and get back to the business of entertainment.
hmm, not sure I want to elect Obama just so I can get good movies back in the theaters again. As much as I like a good movie that might be sacrificing a bit too much.