25. The Happening

"The Happening" kind of sounds like there's about to be a groovy 1970's party. Maybe, that's intentional because what happens is like the total opposite of a groovy 1970's party, and M. Night Shyamalan loves the old switcheroo. Elliot Moore, played by Mark Wahlberg, doesn't solve problems like the Happening often, but when he does, he uses science. Perhaps, that's because he's a high school science teacher who loves his job, unlike any of my high school science teachers, and he wants the next generation to embrace the scientific lifestyle like he has, not like these science-skeptics that we've got nowadays. His best friend Julian, played by John Leguizamo, loves math. He calms himself and other people down by solving math riddles, but as it turns out, math riddles aren't much help against a mysterious plant-based neurotoxin that has the very unscientific property of being able to convince its targets to instantly, but artfully murder themselves. Julian and Elliot try their best to use reason to figure out the patterns of the happening with sophisticated probabilities, which makes for some very unentertaining, shouting-meaningless-statistics-back-and-forth scenes, but to no avail. As it happens, to survive the Happening, just like a groovy 1970's party, all you need is love; albeit, a very lack-luster, and unconvincing love between Julien and Alma Moore, played by Zooey Deschanel, but Deschanel was all the rage back in the mid-oughts, maybe you'll find remember about that enjoyable, and maybe you'll even fall back in love with her cutesy, quirky, spacey ways. I, unfortunately, did not. Come join us for yet another journey into the endless battle between humanity and plant-based neurotoxins that give you novel, theatrical ideas for self-annihilation.

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