The Movie Nut

And now: this century's first ecologically minded horror film. Used to be that when it was us against them, them were little green men or hordes of undead zombies or disgruntled ghosts. Not anymore.

M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" once again puts the human species at risk (and, sorry, but there's no way to write anything about this film without a few potential spoilers). This time, it could be the birds and the bees, or mood rings (remember those?) or even the air we breathe.

In any event, something is taking us out en masse. The epidemic begins in New York, in Central Park, and (of course) our first reaction is terrorists. But the kill zone spreads- Philadelphia, Boston, Princeton- and very quickly we realize this is bigger than Al Qaeda. Lots bigger. Could it be that our own planet is turning on us?

And, really, could we blame it?

The good news about director Shyamalan's latest thriller is that the principle works well as a spooky ecological phenomenon. Truth is, I've never had a problem with Shyamalan's cinematic foundations. From "The Sixth Sense" forward, he's concocted some pretty splendid premises. The bad news: execution. I find "The Happening's" execution somewhat south of decent.

For the first 20 or 30 minutes I was hooked. Something bad is happening. We don't know what. The unseen stalker is a fundamental filmatic device, and there's something profoundly disturbing about a gaggle of happy, shiny cityfolk suddenly aware of the approach of once-distant screams and cries. There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

But a few things quickly occur to dampen the suspense and mire the story. First, "The Happening" is gratuitously violent. The violence isn't prevalent but it's unnecessarily graphic. Whatever's eliminating populations isn't simply dropping us in our tracks- it's evoking our primal suicidal tendencies, so we witness several nice people up and killing themselves in particularly nasty ways.

I understand the validity of this premise in theory (the Red tide, the grunion running, are basically mass suicides) but I also understand the Hitchcockian notion that insinuating violence can raise the terror level without, like, actually grossing us out.

Another problem is the speed with which the terror is recognized. People drop left and right, for no apparent reason, and within 15 minutes, Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) has pretty much determined what's killing them. Okay, it helps move things along, but the simplicity with which he and wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), literally keep one step ahead of the danger is ludicrous.

Speaking of ludicrous, don't try to deeply contemplate the dialogue. It's kind of standard endof-the-world panic speak, blended with some attempts at meaningful, ecology-friendly rhetoric. Mostly- hot dogs, tiramisu, mood rings- it's pretty dumb.

Sure, let's save the rain forests and accept global warming, and, sure, let's trumpet the cause in film, but let's do it in ways that make sense. Good grief, we've enough unfounded anxiety without suddenly starting to fear the daisies.

We've seen efforts like the recent "The Last Mimsy," perhaps "Into the Wild" and even, a generation ago, "Silent Running." Unfortunately, Shyamalan's paranoiainducing "The Happening" isn't one of those more noble efforts. It's simply a horror flick with a more politically correct enemy.