“People are comforted by percentages,” observes John Leguizamo’s character Julian in The Happening. Perhaps; but when they pay ten or twelve bucks to see a movie, they’re much more comforted by quality… which is sadly lacking in this case. And in the spirit of every mother’s sage advice, I’ll refrain from saying as much as I might about what poor moviemaking M. Night Shyamalan’s latest effort represents.

The basic storyline is this: Alma and Elliot’s marital troubles take a “natural” backseat to an ecological terror strike, a purposeful and regionally-bounded release of toxins that leads humans to kill themselves in all sorts of gruesome fashion… which we naturally get to witness. The Moores leave the City of Brotherly Love behind, along with a trainload of other people. In short order, they also have Julian’s daughter Jess in tow. As the toxins strike smaller and smaller groups of people in remoter and remoter locales, Shyamalan’s tale is intended to get more and more claustrophobic and tense as we head toward the Big Reveal twist we’ve come to expect from the director.

As Shyamalan’s projects have grown bigger and bigger, they have finally grown beyond his ability to control. His most recent effort demonstrates this point in painful detail: less than twenty minutes pass before we witness the evidence that M. Night has completely lost his grip.

Quite suddenly, The Moores’ train makes an unscheduled stop in the tiny town of Filbert, because the conductors have “lost contact… with everyone.” Meanwhile, in the background, eighty or so train passengers are getting all sorts of information from folks via their cell phones. Then the whole crowd moves to Filbert’s diner, where updates on the crisis come in via television… all while the conductors are, presumably, still outside, trying to communicate telepathically with the train. When it becomes plain that safety is only ninety miles away, the diner empties… and all those folks who arrived in Filbert by train (presumably on their way to somewhere besides Filbert) jump into their cars and skedaddle. Huh?

This kind of nonsense continues unabated for the film’s remaining hour. It’s mind-boggling frippery, with a litany of unintentionally ironic, self-referential dialogue and signage: “I forgot where I am.” “Can you believe how crappy people are?” “I’m talking to a plastic plant.” “You deserve this.”

Shyamalan’s obviously aiming toward something meaningful, though. While the resolution of the plot—and even the textual theme—iterates the notion that we don’t know why nature does what it does, or what we could possibly do to influence it, the subtext offers a pretty plain answer when Alma asks Elliot about his treasured mood ring (!!): “What color was love?” Shyamalan also works in a reference to the closing line of Larkin’s 1956 poem “An Arundel Tomb:” “What will survive of us is love.” The Beatles would be proud.

The sad thing is that the mood ring reference is the one that really describes what’s up with The Happening. After all, what does the green mood mean? “Average, not much going on.”

And that’s too bad, because we really are doing horrible things to our planet. The subject deserves a much better treatment than this shoddy, predictable variation on the zombie genre. If it had turned into a camp classic, or had been intended for a juvenile audience (like those import-laden tales in short-story anthologies), that would be one thing. But Shyamalan’s R-rated film is just leaden, and dread serious.

The Happening is rated R for “violent and disturbing images.” I would add,”unnecessary.” Shyamalan has done himself a huge disservice by heading in this direction, most likely alienating his now built-in audience. The Lady in the Water led some critics to reevaluate their opinions of the director; his poor choices here will only continue that trend.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Greg attended a press screening of The Happening.