Perhaps I should explain that last post regarding "Speed Racer." Based on a poorly animated Japanese TV series, the latest film by the two brothers responsible for that cycle of diminishing returns known as the "Matrix" trilogy is a candy-colored nightmare, a bad trip that, while occasionally striking, just goes on and on. (It's 135 minutes long, roughly the length of five episodes of the TV series.) It's gaudy, indulgent and horrific to consider - but the question remains: Who thought this was a good idea?

And as bad as "Speed Racer" is, it's such a perverse nightmare of a film that you can at least appreciate the sheer wrongfulness of it. "The Happening" is simply a bad film, poorly conceived, poorly executed.

I admit that I'm not much of a fan of M. Night Shyamalan's gimmicky films, and after the atrocity that was "Signs," I didn't really care if I ever saw another thing he made. But even those who were prepared to anoint MNS as the next Prince Spielberg seem not to have taken the bait with "The Happening."

The film is about a series of unexplained incidents in which an airborne toxin induces people to commit suicide, leading to mass evacuations of various Eastern cities and much soul-searching on the part of characters like science teacher Mark Wahlberg and his guilty wife Zooey Deschanel (if the potential end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it isn't bad enough, she's torn by the knowledge that she went out for dessert with another man!!!!!!!!!!! ). This is silly early-'70s-movie-of-the-week stuff, with an extra helping of blood here or there, and it would be completely forgettable if the director didn't take himself so seriously. (Who am I fooling? It is completely forgettable, and less than 24 hours after I saw it, I was straining to remember how much of the plot had actually been wrapped up...)

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