M. Night Shyamalan has truly outdone himself with his latest creation. With a slew of atrocities under his belt, “Unbreakable,” “The Village,” “Lady in the Water,” and only one major success, “The Sixth Sense,” there is not much of a surprise as to why he would attempt to strip his latest film of all this distinctive cinematic touches. We are now given a finite reason as to why the production and plot details were kept under lock and key for so long, the film has no plot not mention therefore, there is nothing to spoil – Shyamalan already managed to do that himself. He employs tactics so implausible and dumbfounding that the bizarre film goes out of its way to ensure it is not overlooked when the next spoof movie picks its targets.

While the premise may be intriguing, yet not unexplored, the writer/director’s intense will to create set ups that are intricate and bewildering has, yet again, taken a turn for the worst. Remember the final twist in “The Sixth Sense”? A more chilling yet entirely satisfying twist has not been seen in cinema since, and while Shyamalan and countless other filmmakers who attempt to crack the code of his ways have tried to match that level of artistry that ends up contrived to the point of, forgive me here, nothing happening. It is clear that “The Happening” was intended to be a type of revelation, laced in thought-provoking testaments about the very nature of existence itself, but we are given every reason to find the hilarity in it. There is a bizarre discomfort in that very detail, because of the impression we are given that Shyamalan intended the film to be that way. On second thought, a filmmaker as egotistical as Shyamalan, proof of his can be found in his placing of himself as the writer/saviour of the world in his abominable “Lady in the Water,” would never purposely downplay his own “genius” for the sake of the world of cinema-goers thinking him to have a sense of humour.

An apocalyptic happening, one in which nature as we know it or something like it gives up its complacency and bites the hand that has been crippling it for centuries, is something everyone has thought about at one point or another – and more often than not, how we would personally react to such a situation. Therefore, Shyamalan had a potentially career-redefining idea but was so caught up in his initial spark of clarity that he literally had no idea where to go after the conceptualisation of the premise.

Yet the film begins on a day like any other in Central Park, New York, with everyone going about his or her business. Cue ominous wind, darkening sky, and a city full of statues where bustling citizens once stood. One thing has to be said of Shyamalan’s use of everything that surrounds his undeveloped characters, being the landscape, shadows, disarming silence etc, comes across as spine tingling and arresting. Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto’s conjurations of consistently metaphorical imagery save the film from being an amateurish escapade, but there is little substance beneath the deftly crafted surface.

Suddenly, the living statues begin commence with their disturbing self-mutilation leading to mass suicide rampage, completely unexplained. With no one quite sure what is going on, everyone attempts to rush for a safe haven amidst the “War of the World” inspired chaos. While, in retrospect, we are given an early clue as to whom or what the unknown cause for these thoughtless acts of self-violence are. When the truth is revealed you will literally burst out laughing out of sheer disbelief or the fact that it is something or someone that you could have come up with yourself, not something you would expect from a fantastical-spiritual weirdo like Shyamalan. You will laugh or want to go home and stab yourself in the jugular with a hairpin. Some sort of disaster warning should have been given.

Upon meeting the lead characters in the film, it only gets more boring – like a blend of soap opera type melodrama and tedious mass genocide, with one of the two components always detracting of the other. Moving from the initial setting of the eerie prologue to a wondrously filmed Philadelphia, we meet math teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), his otherworldly wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), and an emotionally unstable colleague of Elliot’s, named Julian (John Leguizamo), and his 8-year-old daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). Upon hearing the news of the attack, which no one can make heads or tails of, they try to get out of town. Everyone else has the same plan, they literally see dead or soon-to-be-dead people at every turn and so the chaos continues uninterestingly.

The actors in the film come across just as confused as their characters are, and are given almost nothing to work with, other than make their way around town looking half-dead, spending their time worrying about stupid things they did prior to the “attacks” and continue with even more baffling antics once the stumbling plot points take center stage. Perhaps Shyamalan was trying to make a statement about how society is so wrapped up in seemingly trivial day-to-day occurrences and how we never stop to think of the “bigger” picture, but in terms of his film, neither does he.

Shyamalan, not in the least bit reluctantly, borrows from his previous films, with short-lived hints of rural obsession, religious defiance and self-loathing, but he manages to make use of everything unimpressive about his previous efforts and leaves the suspense, of the age-old variety, on the cutting room floor, wasted. It does seem as though the majority of the development of the plot and the background information of the characters were cut out of the film in order to maintain a shorter running time. While one can feel secure in knowing the pain of watching the film ends in a mere 89 minute running time, perhaps a little more background knowledge would have made the film far less insufferably confusing and the viewers severe indifference might have been something closer to actual interest.

Will “The Happening” mark the end of Shyamalan’s career? Probably not, which is a shame. If the failure of the film is noticed sooner rather than later, and I mean the director noticing and not the unfortunate viewers, perhaps it will prompt Shyamalan to think of getting a writing partner the next time he tries to change the world and the it’s negative perception of his extraordinary amount of ambition and severe lack of self-discipline. If all else fails, he should consider employing more of his usual cinematic tactics, and audiences can conjure up some kind of hesitant belief that someday Shyamalan will get back on track, and unnecessary, uninspired conceptualisations like “The Happening” are blatantly dismissed before they get the opportunity to be made into feature length films.

Fatac Rating: *½

The Happening. Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Cinematography by Tak Fujimoto. Music by James Newton Howard. Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez and Betty Buckley. Running Time: 89 minutes. Age Restriction: 16 V. Year: 2008. Rating out of five stars.