Is "The Happening" the worst movie of all-time?

When M. Night Shyamalan came out with his latest film called "The Happening" I was rather intrigued. I know his movies since "The Sixth Sense" have all fallen kind of flat, even though I thought "Signs" was pretty good and I liked "Unbreakable". Still every time he comes out with something new the trailers completely suck me in and I can't wait to see the movie.

Well I was a little bit late to the dance on this flick, and when my friends saw it opening weekend and told me it was the worst movie they'd ever seen I was not as eager to shell out $12 to see it. So I did the next best thing, I made my friend Mike tell me the whole movie, and it sounded like the worst movie I'd ever heard of.

But it would be unfair to M. Night to simply give his movie such a title without viewing it myself and that is what I plan to do right now. It was on HBO last night, I DVR-ed it and am going to watch it and keep a running diary throughout the movie and let's just see at the end if this will hold onto the belt in the World's Worst Movie championship! (Spoiler alert: It's a running diary of the whole movie, I'm gonna discuss plot points, twists and the end so if you wanna see it at some point don't read this. But let's face it, if you're trying to guard yourself from having "The Happening" ruined for you then I think you have some more serious issues to focus on.)

0:02 - I'm so excited for Marky Mark, I can't wait to see him try to pull off being a simple science teacher. By the way, poor hiring background checks at this high school that would hire Wahlberg after he fingered Reese Witherspoon on a ferris wheel when she was 16.

0:03 - The credits are white text against a back drop of white clouds making reading it like taking an eye exam, not a good sign for where we're headed.

0:08 - A bunch of people just mysteriously killed themselves in New York City. I didn't know Knicks fans had come that far!

0:09 - Wahlberg just told a high school boy he had a perfect face, I told you they should have done that background check.

0:12 - Ferris Bueller's best friend Cameron playing the principal, it's going to be tough to beat that for best cameo. Also they think it was a terrorist attack in New York and Wahlberg goes "Central Park? That's kinda odd." Yeah Mark, it's odd terrorists would target a highly populated area in NYC for an attack.

0:14 - Painful scene of John Leguizamo and Wahlberg talking to let us know that Wahlberg's wife might be leaving him. I have a hunch this "happening" might bring them closer together. Wahlberg's wife played by Zooey Deschanel keeps getting cell calls from a "Joey", possible male lover but I'm hoping for Joey Potter from "Dawson's Creek".

0:20 - People start killing themselves in Philadelphia, which is fitting because it's like a Baby New York.

0:23 - The train Wahlberg got on with his wife and Leguizamo just stopped in a random PA town. I like how the train randomly stops, all the conductors are just talking and no one besides Wahlberg goes up to them to see what's going on. Wahlberg also just said "We're in a small town, nothing will happen to us here." Awesome.

0:27 - Some random woman gets a video on her phone from a zoo where a man goes into a lion's den and lets lions rip off his arms. M. Night is really letting loose with the R rating here. The news says it's no longer likely a terrorist attack and shows a map of it only hitting the northeast with the town Wahlberg's in being the center. Way to jinx yourself Mark, maybe next he'll say "I bet if this was a movie it'd be a sure-fire hit!"

0:29 - The classic random guy says "If we stay here we're all gonna die". Everyone leaves, Leguizamo heads to Jersey to get his wife, Wahlberg and his wife take his kid and go off with a family.

0:31 - They get to the family's house which is right near two gigantic stacks from a power plant. A more effective way to establish the theme might have been to have a sky writer spell out "Man is ruining the environment". The family keeps a greenhouse and says plants can release chemicals and are affected by humans. See where we're heading here?

0:36 - Uh-oh Leguizamo gets to Jersey but it's "happened" there too and they drive right into a tree. He survives then slits his wrists with the broken windshield. M Night is really going gruesome with these deaths.

0:41 - Wow, this is really falling apart. A woman is talking to her daughter who is in Jersey and Wahlberg has her ask if it's infected. The woman asks and she says everyone's dead outside. Wahlberg semi reacts, five seconds pass, the woman then says honey you're talking funny and THEN Wahlberg goes "What do you mean everyone's dead?" Again, at least 5 seconds had passed after she said everyone was dead and she had gone on to a new topic before Wahlberg asked that. I mean he had to have missed his cue there right? Please? Think about if someone said to you we're out of mayo and you waited five seconds and waited for them to start another conversation before saying "What do you mean we're out of mayo?" People don't act like this M. Night!

0:45 - Halfway done. This movie is bad. It's clearly plants doing this, we get it. I'll recycle my cans now M. Night, mission accomplished. Wahlberg's wife admits to having dessert with Joey, that's it. And it's not Joey Potter, it's a dude. Swing and a miss.

0:48 - People start shooting themselves and Wahlberg's wife goes "We can't just stand here as uninvolved observers!" which is interesting because I think if I heard people blowing their brains out my first statement would not be nearly as well thought out and would be closer to "Holy f*cking sh*t!!! Oh f*ck, oh f*ck. Run! F*ck them, save yourself. I think I sh*t my pants. Run!"

0:51 - They just tried to out run wind. You've got to be kidding. It didn't work. Sadly, it also didn't kill them.

0:54 - They are now in an abandoned house and Wahlberg is talking to a house plant as if he's a hostage negotiator, it turns out to be plastic. I really think I could do every drug on the planet in a hour and this movie would still seem ludicrous to me. But what a hour that would be, huh?

0:57 - So it appears it kills people only in large groups, so they try to keep their group small to survive. Also, a man just turned on a lawnmower and laid down in front of it as it ran him over. Fun!

1:02 - Remember that Bruce Willis movie "The Kid"? Well the kid from that movie just took a shotgun blast to the chest and his friend took one in the head. Walhberg says "I want out of this nightmare" I concur.

1:06 - Wahlberg and Co. come to a rundown old house and the old woman living there offers them dinner. She doesn't know what's "happened". This woman's got some pain behind her eyes.

1:14 - Well it got the old woman, she was a loon anyway. She had this weird doll sleeping in a bed. Never trust anyone over 12 who has dolls. She slammed her head against the house then into a window.

1:20 - Wahlberg is in one house, his wife is in another. They can hear each other through a pipe somehow. He says it's not right and if they're gonna die they will die together and goes outside to see her and she comes outside too. I have nothing funny here, it's just so sad.

1:23 - It didn't kill them. Hooray. Fast forward to some time after, the news thinks it's a warning for people to treat the planet better. Also, Wahlberg's wife is now preggers.

1:26 - It starts "happening" in Paris. The end?

Well that might very well have been the worst movie ever. I understand the theme of how terrible we treat this planet, but the dialogue and acting were simply atrocious. I did enjoy one part, when Mark Wahlberg says to himself "Be scientific douchebag."

I don't like to label things as best ever or worst ever often, but I am having a difficult time coming up with something that would top this piece of crap. Feel free to email if you can think of a worse movie.

After watching this, if the Sox lose to the Yankees as well tonight then I am laying in front of a moving lawnmower after the game.

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Keepin' It Really Reel Award - July '09

Really Reel Reviews started as a simple idea that we hoped would pass the time for us and occasionally bring us some amusement. The venture has lasted a little over two months, but it has been exhausting. We have been tiring ourselves by watching movies, going through drafts for various blog entries, and arguing tons of topics and points for podcasts, many of which we never discuss on air. Mix that with family, work, and a recession and you’ve got a recipe for burnout – not to mention I’ve just started my PGA season on Tiger Woods golf! When can a guy get a break? So here we are. Let’s take a knee and grab some water and reflect on the summer of movies since its end is just over one month away…
Most of the blockbusters have already come and gone. When you listen to our podcasts there are only a few movies we strongly recommend, and only one of the much anticipated summer releases do we outright encourage seeing in theaters– STAR TREK. Admittedly, our reason for wanting to see Star Trek and wanting it to succeed was more for J.J. Abrams, not the Star Trek franchise, and that is why Abrams is July’s recipient of the Keepin’ it Really Reel Award.
I never saw Felicity, never saw much of Alias, but I did see the pilot of LOST and that was all she wrote. JJ Abrams directed the pilot of LOST (in addition to his writing and producing responsibilities), and if you haven’t seen it then you are missing something special. The way he handles chaos and presents it intricately, but clearly (which ends up being important to the theme of the show) is unlike anything I had ever seen…until I saw the bridge scene in Mission: Impossible III. But all the explosions, time traveling, and intricate action sequences aren’t what make Abrams amazing.What separates Abrams from McG and Michael Bay is the same thing that makes Star Trek better than Terminator Salvation and Transformers – it’s the story. Yes, the actual story.

Story is an ancient term some of you may not remember, but it is very important to Abrams and what he does. From Felicity to Sydney Bristow to the entire ensemble of LOST; characters are what drives Abrams’ work. Even in "MI3", Abrams’ directorial debut, characters that we had known for two previous movies seemed to have newfound depth to them. I mean, everyone looks better compared to John Woo’s doves and motorcycle ballets, but "MI3" made a legitimate stance as story based action movie. And that’s exactly why the franchise, for the first time in its brief history, will use a director for more than one movie.

I could go on and on about Abrams, but what really makes him deserving of this month’s award is his own words at the TED speaker series. There he talks about his passion for story and mystery. He also mentions why many sequels fail – because they “rip off” the wrong elements of the original movie. I highly recommend listening to that portion of the clip. Abrams Keeps it Really Reel by injecting our otherwise dull, lackluster, and cookie-cutter summer with some life, energy, and ingenuity.
Allow yourself to actually watch some of Abrams’ work and forget about the vehicle he uses to set up his plot; forget the plane crash, the time travel, the black hole, and allow yourself to get to know the doctor or the con man, the aspiring starship captain, or the secret agent and I guarantee you will be amazed. Thank you, J.J. Abrams for your many stories that go beyond the common ploys and tricks of cinema and TV. And we’re all looking forward to 2010 when Destiny is Found! (Lost fans, you can now go change your shorts.)

Ever seen "Event Horizon"? Yeah, you don't need to see "Event Horizon"

So let's be honest here, we do not have the funds to keep reviewing new movies for our loyal followers every week. Sometimes we may have to go to the vault and discuss a movie that isn't exactly the new craze at the cinemas, but hey we're trying our best here.

That being said, HBO has been playing the Sci-Fi thriller "Event Horizon" very frequently the past week and I figured since I'd never seen it then why not give it a chance? Then I thought so many people now have HBO so they can check out the new episode of "Hung" every Sunday I should inform anyone who was like me and thought about devoting 90 minutes to Larry Fishburne and Dr Grant from "Jurassic Park" in space. Not your best work fellas.

"Event Horizon" came out in 1997 and what happens in a nut shell is this spaceship called the Event Horizon (title in the movie!, always popular) gets sent out close to Venus (Oh I should mention this is one of those movies where they drastically overestimate how fast space travel would advance in terms of time and there are colonies on the moon in 2011) and it disappears. Seven years later, guess who's back? The ship appears out of nowhere and Larry Fishburne and his crew are sent to go check it out and rescue any survivors. Along with the crew is Dr. Weir, who built the Event Horizon and as we are introduced to him in the beginning we see he has a "past". Well they get to the ship, blood everywhere, no crew, and apparently the ship has somehow travelled through a black hole and brought hell back with it. Shenanigans ensue, people start seeing their worst nightmares, people start dying, and get this, Fishburne and his crew's ship gets destroyed, so they have to get home on the "Horizon". Oh how are they gonna get out of this pickle??

Some of the movie is pretty scary, as there is a video they find of what happened to the old crew that's really disturbing, but other than that I found it to be kind of lame. I mean this could just be me, but I am not a fan when the "monster" or "evil" in a movie is simply something that shows you bad things or takes over your mind. That doesn't do it for me, I need something with fangs or one big arm accompanied by a little one. One scene really made me mad when a woman thinks she sees her son on the ship and follows him. Was your son on your ship? Does he have the technology or the knowledge that could enable him to fly his own ship to yours? Of course not, it's not him, don't follow the hallucination, you deserved to fall down that shaft.

Two final thoughts, Joely Richardson from "Nip Tuck" was in this movie. She didn't do much and wasn't particularly good in it, but I came away realizing she's British in real life and she does an American accent on the show. Good for her and honestly I am really impressed by a lot of British actors who are able to handle American speak so well. Say what you will about Colin Farrell (I know he's Irish, still counts) but he can speak like he's from the States like nobody's business. Damian Lewis from "Band of Brothers" and NBC's "Life" is another British actor who sounds more like an American than I do and I am from the birthplace of this great nation.

Lastly, before the movie started they do what they always do and show why a movie is rated whatever it's rated. For PG-13 you'll usually get an Adult Content and an Adult Language. But for R, it's anybody's game and let's face it, we all hope for that beautiful uppercase N that stands for Nudity. "Event Horizon" has that N people, but it's for the dreaded Bad Nudity. BN can hit at anytime and in this picture it's when we see a flashback of Dr. Weir's wife slitting her wrists in a bathtub. When you wait a hour into a movie to see what this Nudity business is all about and it turns out it's a naked chick in a tub offing herself, well it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Some other BN moments in case you're wondering is the scene from "The Shining" with the chick in the tub (see a pattern?) and anytime it's a man's ass.

So in conclusion, yeah you don't need to see this movie, unless Jake Noseworthy is your nephew and if he is and you haven't seen it by now then I don't think you two have the most heartwarming talks at Easter anyways.

The Greatest Trilogy of All-Time? / Reader Submission #01

The Infernal Affairs trilogy.
"Never heard of it" you are probably telling yourself. Well, this trilogy happens to be one of the most successful movie franchises to come out of Hong Kong. Many people say that Martin Scorsese’s Oscar winning The Departed was based on the notorious Southie Gangster James “Whitey” Bulger. In fact the movie came from the Hong Kong neo-classic film that was released in 2002. The film went ahead and won several big prizes at Hong Kong’s equivalent of the Oscars, including Best Picture, Screenplay, director, and supporting actor. Its sequels were also nominated for the major awards, but not picking up any. For the sake of avoiding confusion, I will refer to all characters in the Infernal Affairs trilogy to their The Departed counterparts.

You will find that The Departed is nearly a mirror image of its predecessor, minus the painfully over the top and unnecessary performance by Jack (however, the remake does redeem itself with Mark Wahlberg’s character that did not exist in Infernal Affairs). Without giving up too much plot and ruining it for you two, Infernal Affairs II is actually a prequel. The Departed took certain elements of this movie to give more of a back-story behind Leo and Damon’s characters. Infernal Affairs takes the stories of how Leo and Damon infiltrate the mob/police force and divulge into the lives of Jack and Martin Sheen’s characters and their rise through the ranks of both the police force and the triads. The third and final chapter of this fantastic trilogy is the only true “sequel” by the definition, deals with the aftermath of what happened in the first installment. While this takes a backseat to the action and suspense as the previous pieces, Infernal Affairs focuses on the characters in a deep more psychological thriller. While the third pales in comparison to the first two installments, it does give the fan a sense of closure.

And if you’re not going to put that on, you might as well put up the Mighty Ducks, or at least Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood’s Spaghetti Western trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly).
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We certainly appreciate this submission. And before I begin with a response, I just want to remind all our readers and followers that emails debating anything we post, containing questions, or suggestions for topics are always welcome – just email us at reallyreelreviews@gmail.com. You may even get your very own post, much like our first contributor, Oliver.

Oliver, to you I say your passion for movies is shared by both me and Terry. Your knowledge of the Infernal Affairs trilogy is impressive. However, for the purposes of our poll we decided to stick with mainstream films which almost always implies English language films – an unfortunate truth I am sure. I will certainly check out the Infernal Affairs trilogy as I loved The Departed, but I doubt there is any way this write-in suggestion of Infernal Affairs would ever win this poll hence its exclusion…which brings me to my next point.

Mighty Ducks, are you serious? I hope you’re kidding…and if you’re not then maybe you, Adam Banks and Russ Tyler can go practice triple dekes and knuckle pucks together because that would be time better spent than arguing for Mighty Ducks as one of the greatest trilogies. Moving on…

I agree with your suggestion of the Dollars trilogy. I debated including it on the list for some time believe it or not, but the main reason I left it off is because my list was getting long. Another reason is I felt like all the other titles were more in the consciousness of our average follower (probably the average American in general)as better films/trilogies. While many people have heard of at least one of these movies, I think most people are unaware that the three titles you mentioned are actually a trilogy of films. But maybe we should have served as the reminder of how good the trilogy was. After all, it is credited with giving life to, or at least setting the bar for the spaghetti western. On a personal level the Dollars trilogy played a huge part in my development growing up, and I have my older brother to thank for that. As a wide-eyed, impressionable youth my brother introduced me to two great forms of art. One was Wu-Tang’s “Enter the Wu-Tang”/“36 Chambers” which helped me learn at the tender age of ten that, yes in fact, cash does rule everything around me. The other was Clint Eastwood and his resume of characters including the Man with No Name. Later it was Fox’s weekend morning lineup of Kung-Fu theater, but that’s for another post.

If readers and voters are unfamiliar with the Man with No Name and the Dollars trilogy, I urge you to follow Oliver’s lead and check it out. I do not believe it would ever win this poll (it would smash Infernal Affairs and Mighty Ducks), but it is our position to post the poll and let you all decide.
Thanks for your submission, Oliver. And Tell Gordon Bombay ReallyReelReviews says, “What’s up?