WHEN FOLIAGE ATTACKS - The Happening
By Scott Essman
In his first several commercial features, still in his 20s, director M. Night Shyamalan created moments undeniable suspense combined with an otherworldly element that propelled him to the top of a very short list of directors who create wholly original works that play to mainstream America. With no literary or cinematic precedent, films including THE SIXTH SENSE, UNBREAKABLE, and SIGNS became cultural touchstones, though none as impacting as SIXTH SENSE, which still remains by far Shyamalan's strongest effort.
In his newest film, THE HAPPENING, his fifth follow-up to SIXTH SENSE, the director regains the mastery of suspense that he exhibited in those early works, a staple which was lacking from his more recent films, most notably THE LADY IN THE WATER. That last work was told from a largely personal point of view without giving audiences access to his modern fairy tale on any broad level. THE HAPPENING is a much more populist outreach as his tale of a unnamed chemical attack which spreads through the northeast US, driving its victims towards mass suicide features mostly everyman characters.
At the head of that class, literally and figuratively, is Mark Wahlberg, who has shown strong efforts in ensemble projects such as BOOGIE NIGHTS, THREE KINGS and THE DEPARTED with less success when he must carry his own projects, as in Tim Burton's PLANET OF THE APES remake. Playing a science teacher who must lead a shrinking number of people through the infected areas, we are with Wahlberg through nearly all of the story, where he deduces but cannot overcome the source of the virus - our own plants, grass, and trees, communicating through the wind and reacting to the threatening presence of people. It seems that the foliage all around us is communicating and thereby releasing a toxin that provokes first confusion, then the drive towards our own death.
Sure-handedly, Shyamalan's facility with frequently occurring surprises and moments of utter dread which so informed SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE crop up here at opportune moments through the ordeal, which is first stated as - and analogized as - a terrorist attack on US soil. Though not as tight as those earlier films, THE HAPPENING does take you on the journey with this rogue character, whose personal life and history we only learn about in snatches as the story evolves. Instead, Wahlberg stands for anyone and everyone who might be caught in the predicament of fright or flight. We buy him as a survivor and root for him to outlast the rapidly spreading virus though we are never sure until the very end who if anyone will remain after the revenge of the greenery.
Much has been made of Shyamalan's slide from the heroics of SIXTH SENSE and its first succeeding films to the depths of THE VILLAGE - an underrated film - and LADY IN THE WATER, to this film. But that might be more an example of Americans tearing down an overachiever with the same might with which they build him or her up than a legitimate critical analysis. It's fair to say that if one enjoyed Shyamalan's SIGNS, that viewer will find many of the same qualities in THE HAPPENING.
To sensationalize Shyamalan's career by pointing to his decline in light of the outstanding performance of his earlier films is both unfair and irrelevant, and yet another example of overreaction in a short-attention-span celebrity-drenched culture. Still in his 30s, Shyamalan still has many stories to tell and can seemingly take them in any direction he wishes. His choice to stay with unpredictable suspenseful stories has, if nothing else, given his films an iconic stamp, and he should be commended for his body of work thus far.
HULK SMASH - The Incredible Hulk Strikes Back
By Scott Essman
Coming out nationally on June 13 , the new HULK film must represent the fastest turnaround in remake movie history: a previous HULK had just been released in 2003. But five years is a lot in the franchise business, and the powers that be sought to distance themselves from the 2003 Ang Lee-directed version and try for a new outing with Louis Leterrier at the helm (apparently, every HULK film must be directed by someone born outside the US).
What Leterrier and company have come up with is at once better than the 2003 film in many ways, and a repetition of the 2003 film's problems in many other ways. While 2008's Edward Norton provides a more complex multi-layered Bruce Banner than 2003's Eric Bana, not every casting choice is so fortunate. Jennifer Connelly, the 2003 Betty Ross, is a certainly superior actress to 2008's Liv Tyler, and the former movie was better for it. Ditto for 2003's Sam Elliott, a more menacing and convincing General Ross than 2008's William Hurt. We also find Tim Roth here, replicating his performance from PULP FICTION in a counter-HULK part, and we are often confused more than thrilled at the hammy performance.
Surely, 2008's three big action set pieces are far more memorable than 2003's, as Leterrier is obviously more comfortable with action sequences than Ang Lee, who has proved himself a superior director of character and nuance (Lee himself unthinkably performed the motion-captured Hulk movements in his version). Occurring at evenly spaced moments throughout the new film, the action moments are often breathtaking, if predictable. We surely know that there will be an all-out battle of hulks just as we foresaw the final battle in IRON MAN, a better film adaptation than this HULK if not a superior overall piece of filmmaking from a character standpoint. We also love the homages to the 1978 TV show - look for cameos both in personage and name, plus a quick quote of the TV's theme music.
Ironically, when we see the Hulk less onscreen, as in an invigorating factory confrontation in the opening act, it is often more effective than when he is overplayed, as in an all-out military battle in a university's open fields. Too much of a good thing is often just that, and the film forgets to inhibit itself at the right points in the action. Who has failed to lecture modern moviemakers that just because you *can* show something doesn't always mean that you *should* do it? Is this George Lucas' fault? Stephen Sommers's? Peter Jackson's? All too many of our most visual filmmakers are infected with the over-the-top virus, it's just short of confounding.
What ultimately dooms this HULK like the previous film and many other spectacular cinema of late is its choice of how to exposit its top moments. Once again, what many filmmakers fail to realize in recent years is that action movies have a big problem if they are rendered solely with computer-generated characters. Certainly, HULK's great spectacles are visually interesting, but they fail to remain with you just after they present themselves. If the adage is true that "CGI isn't scary, it isn't funny, and it isn't fantastic", no one seems to have told directors of action films in the past 15 years. Not since the original JURASSICPARK have CGI characters been so effectively realized on film.
What we saw, even in the first JURASSIC PARK film, is that so perfectly actualized good action cinema is a careful combination of real live-action effects with computer-generated imagery, then only delivered when absolutely necessary. Though there have been many advances in the latter department over the past 15 years, filmmakers have still not learned how to make such characters compelling and memorable. While we root for Bruce Banner and his green counterpart, it's difficult to find any empathy for a being that we realize is all too a product of the latest technologies and less of the imagination.
So, should we expect a HULK sequel or yet another re-imagining within another five years? You bet. If anything is to be told about the patterns of sequels and remakes in a sluggish economy, it is that "more is more".
Scott Essman
VISIONARY MEDIA
scottessman@yahoo.com
P.O. Box 1722 Glendora, CA 91740
Ph 1 (626) 963-0635
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