Three 2008 Movies Not Worth Seeing: The Happening, The Love Guru & Punisher: War Zone

In the last year, my family and I have done a lot of international travelling and so have missed seeing several movies in the theater that had peaked our interest. Therefore, when we returned to the United States this fall, we caught up a little on our movie watching. The following is a review of three of the movies we saw that really should be missed.

First, we rented M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. This film is not for the faint of heart. There are some disturbing images and violence that may not be suitable for younger viewers. The movie centers on a strange phenomenon that causes people, with no previous inclination, to commit suicide. Thus started another of what could have been a nicely twisted movie, but my husband and I figured out the "twist" without much deliberation needed. I will not spoil it for those who still want to see the movie, but I found myself viewing this film as I had the last Shyamalan film: What character will Shyamalan play this time? By the way, he plays a real estate agent in this movie.

The story did not make much sense. There were points in the plot where the creator took a leap and tried to disguise it as logic. For instance, if the deaths are caused the way it is described in the movie, then everyone should have died in the effected areas. However, there were times when the main characters were within sight of the happening and did not become effected.

M. Night Shyamalan has produced a few decent movies in the past. The Sixth Sense and Signs are a few of those, but if you are expecting the same level of intrigue in this movie, don't bother watching it. It just isn't there.

The second movie we watched was The Love Guru with Mike Meyers. It is not suited for children. It is loaded with sexual innuendo and crude jokes. The Love Guru is supposed to be a comedy about an Indian love guru, who is competing with a fellow, former student of the art. As I said, it is supposed to be a comedy, but it is almost painful to watch.

The character played by Meyers becomes an apprentice love guru because he wants to be liked by girls. With this revelation, his teacher makes him wear a chastity belt until he learns to love himself. This apparently is too difficult for him since there are jokes about his inability to be intimate because of it. The "jokes" get a little better than that as the movie progresses, but not by much. Even my husband, who is a big Mike Meyers fan, thought this movie was pointless drivel.

The only upside I found to renting this movie was that we only paid a dollar for it at one of the Red Box rental centers.

Finally, we went to the movie theater and saw Punisher: War Zone. We heard that this is the sequel to the Punisher (2004). However, any resemblance between the original movie and the new one are purely coincidental. I have a personal peeve against changing the actor in a story unless the actor dies and cannot play the new role. So, when I saw that Frank Castle was played by Ray Stevenson instead of Thomas Jane, I was a little put off.

Now I will usually get over the actor change if the movie is still good. This movie failed to bring me out of my funk. It recapped the story of why Frank Castle became the Punisher through flashbacks, but the story they told was not the same story they showed in the first movie. It the first movie, they were after him because of something that happened on the job with Frank Castle, while in the second it was because his family witnessed a mob hit while on a picnic. Another discrepancy was that in the first movie, Frank is an FBI agent, where in this movie, he was a Special Forces instructor. There were several other things that changed between the movies, but I won't bore you with all of them. Now I admit that I never read the comics that these movies were based on, but when a story is established, the sequel should at least follow the same storyline.

Needless to say, this is another movie that I do not recommend. This movie has a lot of violence and a bit of foul language. The comedy used in the first movie to relieve tension is all but missing in this movie. I highly recommend that if you must see it, please don't let your children watch this movie.

Anyway, I am still catching up on movies, and hopefully, they aren't all this bad. I shall soon find out.

The Happening, IMDb.com

The Love Guru, IMDb.com

Punisher: War Zone, IMDb.com