5. The Plants - The Happening
Granted, this film is absurd and contrived from start to finish, what with the so-called "bad guys" actually being plants that emit a gas that convinces human beings to spontaneously commit suicide. Mark Wahlberg and a ridiculously miscast Zooey Deschanel try to outrun giant clouds and make it through the day as everyone around them turns suicidal, but from a plan perspective, and from an evolutionary, scientific perspective, doesn't this all seem a bit, well, theatrical? Plans emitting a gas that signals our brain to pick up a nearby weapon and do ourselves in feels a far stretch beyond a plant emitting a gas that just, you know, shuts our body down and kills us instantly. But then that's sort of the point, I guess; M. Night Shyamalan was looking for something that looked good in a trailer, and this silly gas allows for a lot of ridiculous, dramatic death scenes, whereas the more sensible "scheme" of the plants would have had everyone on planet Earth die of poison within a day or two. Still, things like this are probably the last thing we should be complaining about in this horrible, horrible film.
Shaun Munro
Contributor
Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.
See more from
Shaun