The Happening
Surprisingly, I don't believe I've seen an M. Night Shyamalan film before - though if The Happening were typical of his fare, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. This is a muddled, messy, badly-acted film which evokes no empathy or terror whatsoever - though, like Prom Night, it does have quite a number of (presumably unintentionally) hilarious moments, especially in the dialogue. My favourites have to be the 'Oh No!' when people start shooting themselves, and the 'What? No!' in response to the old lady who says she's going to be murdered in her sleep. I won't even mention the conversation with the plastic plant, or the woman so keen to show off the lion video on her (mysteriously still working) phone......

Like Smart People, this doesn't do much for the reputation of so-called 'smart people', either. The science and the maths in here is risible.

Reasonable premise, terrible execution, with plot holes galore, all the usual stupid behaviour by the main characters, and poor pacing. And then the acting... Zooey Deschanel, sadly, deserves a special mention as delivering a vacant, wide-eyed, infuriating disaster of a performance. Which is a shame, as I actually like her, but she's awful here, even after allowing for an awful script and awful story. Mark Wahlberg is a little, but certainly not much, better - even though, apparently, he can act, there's not much proof here. John Leguizamo is... strange. Spencer Breslin should leave the acting to his sister Abigail, on this performance. Betty Buckley is ok, but saddled with a character as rickety as the rest.

While this could have been good, this is a disaster of a film. Some of the direction is ok (and some isn't), but there are so many problems with the writing, the story, and the acting, that it ends up an absolute mess. 3.5 out of 10.