M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening Slammed And New 5-Minute Video Clip

Our friends at Collider have the first reader review of M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening and it's not good at all:

"The Happening is a terrible, terrible movie. I mean, it's bad on an epic scale. It's so bad that I can't possibly tell you how bad it is without understating the point or making it sound like I'm picking on the film. But let me stress: this is not pent-up Shyamalan aggression or a desire to see him fail. This is bad in a jaw-dropping "they can't really be serious, can they?" kind of way. The closest comparison I can draw is to Neil LaBute's "Wicker Man" and, like that film, the only consolation I can offer potential theater-goers is that you might want to see it just to be in on the ground floor when the film gets its ass handed back to it."

It couldn't really be that bad, could it? The reviewer makes note of Wahlberg's horrible performance (likely due to Shyamalan's direction), pacing issues, and last act problems.

"If you're dreading the Shyamalan trademark twist-ending, you can breathe a sigh of relief. There's no twist whatsoever. But there's also no ending. I won't ruin it any further by talking about what's not there, but prepare to feel very, very cheated and figure out in advance what consultation you can offer when the person next you confusedly asks, "Is that it?""

The line-reading/questionable acting is really evident in this new 5-minute video clip which has been released by Fox. Watching the clip you'll notice how M Night does a great job selling the concept of the film. He might even have you believe that the Collider review might be dead wrong. But then comes a 2+ minute clip from the film which displays the line delivery and pacing problems that are mentioned in the review. I really want The Happening to be a return to form, but this doesn't bode well for the film's pre-release hype.

[flv:http://bitcast-a.bitgravity.com/slashfilm/trailers/thehappening5min.flv 460 254]

Discuss: What do you think of the new video clip from The Happening?

via: Yahoo