^I pretty much agree with you on your points. The plot of the movie was bad, and everything you pointed out as cliche' was.... but, its still not polite to give away the crap ending, and the "villain".
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What annoyed me most about this movie, besides the bad acting, bad script writing, poor use of music, camera, and worthless characters such as the old hermit lady, was that the core cause of "The Happening" didn't make sense.
OK, so we want this to be a wrath of nature movie. It has been proven that chemicals in the brain are indeed responsible for self-preservation. It is not unreasonable to assume that the chemical can be blocked, or even switched.
However, there is an inherent flaw to this. If the chemicals in our brain were switched, because we as human beings are designed to adapt, the brain is given much control over its "programming". We are not simple animals driven by instinct.
In the same way that a person with normal brain chemical levels can choose to kill himself (think samurai seppuku, or a marine killing himself to avoid torture, not necessarily depressed susie), a person with a flipped self preservation mechanism would at least struggle with the chemical imbalance, rather than just freeze and then abruptly walk over to the nearest cliff.
The mention of the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and Red Tide as examples of unusual natural events also greatly irritated me. Especially the mention of CCD.
First of all, CCD is caused by humans. We haven't quite narrowed down the cause, and there are numerous contributing factors, but the bottom line is that bee keepers sticking to "Natural Beekeeping" standard are not effected. CCD might be caused by genetically modified crops, use of antibiotics in hives, malnutrition causing increased susceptibility to viruses and parasites, or new neonicotinoid pesticides which can **** up their neato bee navigation system. I think its a combination of factors, but like to blame neonicotinoid pesticides since it best explains why the bees don't return to the hive. Regardless, ITS NOT AN ACT OF NATURE, ITS AN ACT OF MAN.
Healthy wild bees, who are away from human made pesticides do not experience CCD. Calling this an act of nature that we will never fully understand, is nothing short of stupidity.
The Red Tide was a better example... some harmful algal blooms involve the production of natural toxins, which include a neurotoxin called brevetoxin. But Karenia brevis Algae possess these toxins all the time, its just that during a algral-bloom there is just a lot more of the algae, so, therefore a harmful level of the toxins that particular algae already has. A harmless algae does not get up and decide "I'm sick of these fish eating my homies, lets kill em'!", its either just a result of natural cycles, or human interaction in the way of loading the water with too much nutrients for the algae, throwing things out of balance.
What M. Night Shyamalan needed to add credibility to his "villain", is some kind of explanation as to how humans intervened. Blame the government, biochemical terrorism, something... there needed to be a supplementary villain.
Another thing that irked me, is why did this just happen to the North East, and what was up with the way that the phenomenon escalated on a exponential curve? Neither made logical sense to me. I'd envision a plant attack of a deadly toxic chemical to more or less sweep across the continent, following the wind cycle, killing everything in its path. A complete apocalyptic event, would have certainly been more interesting... I'm not sure why a movie already having guys feeding themselves to lions is holding back on the scale. Limiting things to the North East, just made the story feel even more fake to me.
So, it was a decent premise... the idea of a chemical causing a person to kill him/herself is pretty scarey, and could be a reality through chemical warfare, however... after this little idea M. Night Shyamalan might not have been clever enough to pull off the rest of the story. He only pulled off 1 believable character for christ's sake...
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