Happening, The (Blu-ray)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

Where M. Night Shyamalan goes from here I do not know. In all honesty, I really do not care. I know he is to direct a live action version of "Avatar: The Last Airbender." That does not excite me. I´d rather see Tim Burton bring about a darker version of "The Care Bears." I loved Shyamalan´s earlier films because he brought my ancestral city of Philadelphia pride and he created very entertaining films. I looked forward to each new picture from the Indian-born director, but after the disappointment of his last two films I am far too shaken in my faith of his talent to have any desire to pay $10.00 for a ticket to one of his pictures. He would need Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson and a sequel to "Unbreakable" for me to care and that supposedly will never happen and neither will me once again viewing him as one of the very best young directors.

Video:

While "The Happening" isn´t the first film I´d recommend watching on the Blu-ray format, it is a picture that I cannot give fault to for its visuals. The AVC coded film is framed at 1.85:1 and looks quite good. Detail and coloring is very strong and the individual blades of grass and leaves in trees look incredible as the wind blows. Colors are slightly desaturated and lighting is often overblown and blue skies look white in contrast. The film has a stylized look and it looks quite good in high definition. M. Night was influenced a great deal by the look of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and it shows. A thin sheen of film grain provides a very film-like appearance and advocates of grain should be pleased, while others will hardly notice. Black levels are very strong and shadow detail is good. The print used was very clean and no flaws aside from a slight hint of edge enhancement can be found. The stylized look doesn´t make this the best looking title, but it is still well above average.

Audio:

Wind is a primary character in "The Happening" and the English 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio mix delivers the sound of wind and blowing flora very nicely through all six channels. I honestly don´t think wind has ever sounded so good and that is a compliment to this disc. The haunting musical score by James Newton Howard sounds very good and bleeds into the rear channels nicely. Bass thumps heavily to attempt to build suspense and makes good use of the .1 LFE channel. The rear surrounds hold plenty of ambient sounds that includes the previously mentioned wind. Sound moves nicely across all channels and dialogue is crystal clear. For those that cannot handle the DTS audio mix, an English 5.1 Dolby Digital mix is included as well as Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes in French and Spanish. Subtitles are included for English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin and Korean. This is a good mix that helps the disappointing film to a limited degree.

Extras:

My Blu-ray screener copy of "The Happening" arrived on release day for review, ahead of the DVD. As of yet I have not received the DVD copy for comparison, but I´m assuming the special features for both versions will be basically similar. The Blu-ray is billed as a Digital Copy Special Edition and the disc boots up with an advertisement for this feature that 20th Century Fox has been pushing. Of course, the Blu-ray title touts the DVD feature and does not mention that it is also available on Blu-ray, but that is just semantics. The fact is that Fox has been packaging many of their higher profile releases with a second DVD platter that contains installation software and media to play films on portable devices or computers and "The Happening" is one of these titles. It is a nice feature.

The Blu-ray platter itself contains a nice array of bonus materials for this disappointing film. It begins with Bonus View with Trivia Track. This requires Profile 1.1 capable Blu-ray players and the feature is a Picture-in-Picture based supplement with M. Night talking about the film in video commentary snippets. He begins with his influences from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and does add some nice commentary along with other members of the cast and crew. Pop-up trivia windows also appear that convey some little facts about the film and topics covered in the film. For those without Profile 1.1 capability, the footage and trivia track may be played separately by selecting from other menu items. I applaud Fox for giving non-Profile 1.1 capable machines the ability to enjoy the supplements.

The stand alone features are decent, but still do not make up for M. Night´s failure as a filmmaker. The first menu page contains five items. Train Shooting (4:15) is a short snippet with Mark Wahlberg introducing the 30th street station sequence and others discuss the scene and some brief behind-the-scenes moments are included. The Hard Cut (9:02) is a longer featurette and has M. Night talk more about his influences and the editing of the film. While he has shaken my belief in his filmmaking, but I still enjoy listening to him talk about the making of the film. Forces Unseen (4:40) looks at the wind and how it was a ´character´ in the film with more fluff and making-of footage. "I Hear You Whispering" (4:18) looks at the films last act and Mrs. Jones (Betty Buckley) and its rare a supplemental item focuses entirely on a supporting character. The final item on this menu page is a Gag Reel (2:39).

By selecting "More" you enter a second menu page with more bonus materials. Four Deleted Scenes (11:47) are provided with optional introductions by Shyamalan (3:49). Three are extended versions of existing scenes and one is a new "Music Recital" death sequence. The extended lion scene was fun. The last two were quite skippable. The oddly titled The Happening – Visions of the Happening: A Making Of (11:54) is your basic EPK styled making of featurette. It isn´t terribly long and doesn´t contain much substance, but if you somehow enjoyed the film it might be worth watching. A Day For Night (6:46) is a feature centered around M. Night and follows him from tying his boot through the filming of a series of scenes in one shooting day. This was a very nice making-of-featurette and the highlight of the disc. Finally, Elements of a Scene (10:03) looks at the "car ramming into a tree" death scene and what went into creating the scene. The disc also contains D-Box coding.

Closing:

I am very disappointed with "The Happening" and M. Night Shyamalan has successfully broken my faith in the filmmaker. Whereas he had made three highly entertaining films beginning with "The Sixth Sense," it has been all downhill since the mildly disappointing "The Village." This picture packs limited action, no suspense and no sense of terror and the apocalypse. It gets boring and M. Night was not successful in making a film where the wind is the primary villain. The performances aren´t good, either. The Blu-ray itself has a fairly good looking picture and effective audio. The supplements are short and not overly impressive, but this is quite simply a movie where you won´t want too much more after suffering the disappointment of watching the main feature. Maybe Mr. Shyamalan can one day restore my faith in his abilities, but for now "The Happening" was the last straw.