Saturday, June 14, 2008

Night at the Movies: The Happening


I had mixed feelings about whether or not I wanted to see this flick but alas there was nothing on tv last night to keep my attention so off Z and I went.

The movie was scheduled to begin at 10:10 but of course that includes previews so I'm thinking after about 5 minutes we would be good to go. HA! The audience had to sit through 20 daggone minutes of previews and I will go on record as saying that it was annoying as fuck! As with any preview, most movies are either (1) already out or (2) have been playing on tv as well so as much as you don't want to see them, you just endure and hope that the last one that plays is the very last one before the movie starts. This was just like a bad dream played out in life. I damn near grabbed my purse and went out into the lobby to wait them out. lol I do believe I was in a cranky mood anyway so this didn't help. After the torture, the movie starts. Just to give a background of what the film is about. An airborn gas is suspected to be floating in the air in the NE part of the country causing people to kill themselves so everyone is trying to outrun it or take shelter and hide from it. Cool enough plot. I figure it could happen in real life (nothing surprises me these days).

I was pleased with the fact that they didn't make you wait for the "meat" of the story to be played out. The good stuff started happening pretty much in the first couple minutes. What I wasn't pleased with is that they touted this film as M.Night Shalamar's (that's what I call him) first "R" rated film. For what might I ask? A thin line of blood going down someone's head from a self inflicted bullet womb and watching what was supposed to be a horrific scene (it was anything but....trust me) of someone's arms being bitten off by lions at the zoo just didn't cut it for me....I'm sorry.

Even though the film was not intentionally meant to be funny, I found myself laughing throughout most of it. Case in point, there is one scene where the main characters are looking down on a group of people running into the home they just left. Well, they weren't running quite fast enough and the "the happening" catches up to them. One of the men in the group decides to off himself by turning on a lawn mower and falling down in front of it for it to run over him. Yeah, I know that's not funny but the way he fell down on the ground had me hollerin in the theater. It was kinda like how you would imagine Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather from "Men on Film" on In Living Color passing out....I swear! lol lol lol I also was gifted a lot of giggles from Mark Walberg in his delivery of certain lines.

I suppose you will just have to watch it to see what I'm talking about but I definitely wouldn't pay top dollar at the theater to see it. If I knew then what I know now, I would have been calling up my local Homeboy Network to boost a bootleg copy....either that or wait for it to come on cable. I should have known better than to agree to see this after one of my friends told me about the fuckery that is "The Strangers". Two...two....two duds in one! (shout out to "A Different World"). We almost went to see that ish last week too! lol

So anyway, you've been forewarned. Waste your hard-earned dollars at your own risk.

AR Gal rates this movie: I should have stayed my black ass at home.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I left the theater after seeing this about an hour ago. It was all right. I'm mad they showed most of the good deaths in the previews.

AR Gal said...

It seems like that is the status quo nowadays to show all the good parts during previews. Movies weren't always this bad, were they? :-(

Anonymous said...

I don't remember the previews spoiling everything like they do now. I've had to stop myself from watching a few trailers because I still want to be excited by the movie when it's actually released.

You know they have an awards show just for movie previews? They make award shows for anything.

Anonymous said...

Girl, I went to see this mess too and i was laughing so hard i was snorting. the construction scene was just flat funny-why they just stand around looking down? after the movie was over, the guy in front us said "this was the worst movie i have ever seen" my response "i guess you haven't seen speed racer then"

Giving you what I got....musically