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The Happening

2008

M. Night Shyamalan

Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez ...

5.1

44,504

Sci-Fi. Mystery. Horror A paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity. It begins with no clear warning. It seems to come out of nowhere. In a matter of minutes, episodes of strange, chilling deaths that defy reason and boggle the mind in their shocking destructiveness, erupt in major American cities. What is causing this sudden, total breakdown of human behavior? Is it some kind of new ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Kirk Honeycutt The Hollywood Reporter	"This paranoid thriller has its moments, but weak story and characters do more damage than any neurotoxic menace."	NEG
United States	Manohla Dargis The New York Times	"A divertingly goofy thriller with an animistic bent, moments of shivery and twitchy suspense and a solid lead performance from Mark Wahlberg."	POS
United States	Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly	"Undermined by a pompous insistence on spiritual lessons (...) The filmmaker has fun with the cinematic conventions of social paranoia but is a sucker for overacting among his major players."	NEG
United States	Stephen Hunter The Washington Post	"He [Shyamalan] still sees dead people, only now they're the best thing in the movie."	NEG
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"A movie that I find oddly touching. It is no doubt too thoughtful for the summer action season, but I appreciate the quietly realistic way Shyamalan finds to tell a story about the possible death of man. (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Claudia Puig USA Today	"The film opens in an effectively creepy fashion but loses steam quickly, the premise grows far-fetched. (...) Wahlberg wears the same expression in nearly every scene (...) Rating: ★½ (out of 4)"	NEG

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