The Happening [Blu-ray] [2008]

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Total RRP: £81.97
Price For All Three: £35.94

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• This item: The Happening [Blu-ray] [2008] DVD ~ Zooey Deschanel

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• The Mist [Blu-ray] [2007] DVD ~ Thomas Jane

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• The Dark Knight (2 Discs) [Blu-ray] DVD ~ Christian Bale

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Amazon.co.uk Review
You'd expect the end of the world to be no day in the park, but in M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, a day in the park is where the end begins. One otherwise peaceful summer morning, New Yorkers strolling in Central Park come to a halt in unison, then begin killing themselves by any means at hand. At a high-rise construction site a few blocks over, it's raining bodies as workers step off girders into space. And all the while, the city is so quiet you can hear the gentle breeze in the trees. That breeze carries a neurotoxin, and what or who put it there (terrorists?) is a question raised periodically as the film unfolds. But the question that really matters is how and whether anybody in the Middle Atlantic states is going to stay alive.

The Happening is Shyamalan's best film since The Sixth Sense, partly because he avoids the kind of egregious misjudgment that derailed The Village and Lady in the Water, but mostly because the whole thing has been structured and imagined to keep faith with the point of view of regular, unheroic folks confronted with a mammoth crisis. Focal characters are a Philadelphia high-school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg, excellent), his wife (Zooey Deschanel) and math-teacher colleague (John Leguizamo), and the latter’s little girl (Ashlyn Sanchez). Instinct says get out of the cities and move west; most of the film takes place in the delicately picturesque Pennsylvania countryside, with menace hovering somewhere in the haze. There are no special effects (apart from a wind machine and some breakaway glass), but the movie manages to be deeply unsettling in the matter-of-factness of its storytelling. Especially effective is its feel for what we might call the surrealism of banality. One warning sign that someone has been infected by the neurotoxin is irrational or erratic speech and behavior, yet Shyamalan has a genius for dialogue that sounds normal and everyday as it's spoken, yet flies apart grenade-like a second later as its logic (or illogic) sinks in. Then there's Deschanel's eye-rolling dodginess about the messages some guy has been leaving on her cellphone. Or the fellow (Frank Collis) who addresses his greenhouse plants as though they were his children--has a stray toxic zephyr wafted his way, or is this just his idea of normal? --Richard T. Jameson, Amazon.com

Synopsis
In THE HAPPENING, M. Night Shyamalan serves up a slice of apocalyptic strangeness. The film opens onto New York City's Central Park with a crowd of people enjoying an idyllic summer day. The carefree scene soon takes a terrifying turn, when out of nowhere, hordes of people begin to commit suicide en masse. People scramble to make sense of the pandemonium, and many believe it is a terrorist attack. It appears that some sort of deadly toxin is being released into the air. Cut to Elliot (Mark Wahlberg), a science teacher in Philadelphia. When he learns of the attack on New York, he meets up with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), his friend Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julians's daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). They make plans to get out of the city via train, but the train is evacuated in the middle of a small Pennsylvania town. When they learn that the mysterious toxin is spreading its way across the Northeast, they break up into groups, with Elliot, Alma, and Jess running through open farmland in search of safety. They are unsure of where to hide, or what exactly they are hiding from, until Elliot slowly forms a theory about the threat. He fights to keep Alma and Jess free from harm, and the film builds to a bizarre, unsettling climax.
Shyamalan's premise of escaping an unknown, unexplainable attack is a timely one, and is quite chilling in concept. THE HAPPENING succeeds in creating the frenzied scariness of THE BIRDS, combined with the outlandish death scenes and unusual plot line found in B-movie classics. For fans of campy horror in the vein of THE EVIL DEAD, it is truly something to behold.

The Dark Knight (2 Discs) [Blu-ray] DVD ~ Christian Bale 4.6 out of 5 stars (112)  £12.98

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Iron Man [Blu-ray] [2008] DVD ~ Jeff Bridges 4.7 out of 5 stars (36)  £17.68

WALL-E [Blu-ray] [2008] DVD ~ Ben Burtt 4.4 out of 5 stars (40)  £14.98

The Mist [Blu-ray] [2007] DVD ~ Thomas Jane 4.2 out of 5 stars (8)  £10.98

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6 Reviews 5 star:  (1) 4 star:  (1) 3 star:  (1) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:  (3)           Average Customer Review 2.5 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars Somewhere between..., 5 Nov 2008 By  Martin Lloyd "mutton73" (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    I'm not sure what to make of the director... I loved the Sixth Sense and it seems that everything he has made since has struggled to live up to that benchmark. Knowing this, I tried to approach the film with an open mind. This is another "good" faery tale from him, but no sensation. There are moments when the acting slips from the tongue-in-cheek to simply poor, and the plot/pacing would have been more suited to a TV series. However, if you approach without preconceptions, you may find yourself enjoying it's slow-burning oddness - though having paid a shade under £20, I have been left underwhelmed. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   5 of 11 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars this film is good at least., 1 Nov 2008 By  M. A. Yates "BigFoot" (England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    i myself thought this film was great. im not gonna start sayin you should watch this becase everyone likes different films. its just life. lol. but at least consider it. not like these teletubbies that post complaints tellin you not to watch it because they didnt like it. remember critics are most of the time wrong when it comes down what you the buyer personally likes. then there are these people that think their important because to them they know a good flim. i hate the teletubbies. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   1 of 2 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars Wouldn't it have been funny if during the first scene "It's raining men was playing", 19 Nov 2008 By  genejoke "Mmmm Shiny" (uk) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    In defence of the (not much) happening. I found it to be a genuinely suspensful thriller, while the plot seemed a little far fetched and lacked the nessersary impact intended it wasn't completely terrible. The acting isn't awful but the actors are playing awkward people and less intense and slower witted than they are normally associated with. Where the film succeeds is the tensions, playing on our fear of the unknown. If you enjoyed, signs, sixth sense and the village then I have no doubt you will enjoy the happening. Comment Comments (2) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 6 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 1.0 out of 5 stars Avoid like the plague This is my new Number 1 worst film I've seen. Do not waste your money. Script=crap, acting=crap, direction=well you get the drift. Read more Published 21 days ago by dobs 1.0 out of 5 stars What {?} Happened! WARNING - THE PLOT/FABLE IS HERE! The Happening [Blu-ray] [2008] Now, for those who watched 'til the end .. {For "The Wind" below I suppose you could transpose/change for "The Foliage"! Read more Published 6 months ago by AyGist 1.0 out of 5 stars The Crappening ** WARNING: COMPLETE PLOT SPOILERS BELOW ** Imagine this: Plants have become a tad annoyed with humans polluting the environment and exact revenge by releasing... Read more Published 8 months ago by Shaiya Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 6 customer reviews...

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