It’s hard to argue that the The Princess & The Frog has been anything other than a disappointment at the box office. After more than 2 months of wide release, it has yet to cross the all-important $100 million mark (and because it fell a sharp 54% last week, there is a possibility that it may never cross it.) To put this in perspective, consider that the family movie released two weeks before it, A Chistmas Carol, pocketed $100 million in just 24 days and the family movie released two weeks after it, Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, joined club 100 million after only 8 days. And even if PATF drags itself across $100 million with its last theatrical breath, its domestic gross won’t come close to recouping the $140 million the film cost Disney to produce and market.

Some people have argued that the Frog’s low numbers can be attributed to a bad release date. People who make this argument either don’t know or have forgotten that the first Chipmunks movie opened this same exact week in 2007 to a record $44 million.  Others have claimed that a “Princess” movie was a hard sell for boys. Are these the same experts who claimed that Pixar’s 2006 hit Cars was a tough sell for girls before it went on to gross $461 million worldwide? If this were a real issue, we would have seen it with the earlier Disney princess movies.

Whatever The Princess & The Frog lacked at the Box Office, it’s more than made up at the Mall. The merchandise is a smash hit.

According to the L.A. Times, Princess Tiana merchandise already accounts for 20% of “Disney Princess” merchandise sales, which works out to about $800 million a year. The Toy Industry Association has nominated Mattel’s Just One Kiss Princess Tiana doll as individual Toy of the Year and The Princess & The Frog brand as Toy Property of the Year. I just checked a few minutes ago and Princess Tiana dolls still held the No.1 and No.4 spots in Amazon.com’s doll category weeks after Christmas. Princess Tiana bedding is outselling perennial favorite The Little Mermaid 3-to-1 at major retailers. Are there any Chipmunks who can squeak that?
And just think, if PATF follows historical patterns, these fantastic merchandise numbers are merely an appetizer to enormous DVD sales that will go on for years.

So where does this leave us? To me the verdict is clear: America was more than ready for Princess Tiana, but Disney didn’t deliver the movie it wanted.

I’m just glad nobody mentioned race.

The first reason is that nothing happens in the movie. That’s not a spoiler or a clever play on words. Sadly, it’s a plot synopsis. If you can believe it, The Happening is an apocalyptic thriller without an apocalypse. Sure, there’s a cataclysmic “event” in the beginning. But then no chaos, excitement or real suspense ensues. Even though humanity is facing possible extinction, everyone stays calm, rational and orderly. In addition to being wildly unrealistic, such a storyline is boring.

If the “event” in the movie happened in real life, there would be widespread panic. Hazmat crews would be everywhere. Cell phone networks would crash. Children would be ripped from their mothers’ fingertips in the inevitable chaos. But nothing remotely like this happens in the movie. Actually, after the first 10 minutes, not much of anything happens, making the film’s title the ultimate oxymoron.

As if a dreary plot was not harm enough, the special effects, dialogue and editing are film-school amateurish. As many other reviewers have decried, I can confirm that there are indeed two scenes in the film where the microphone grip accidentally falls into the frame.

The second reason I’m so disappointed with The Happening is that, like many of his former fans, I really wanted to see Shyamalan redeem himself after the dreadful Lady in the Water. As bad as that movie was (and it was very, very bad), at least it came with the entertaining distraction that was the behind-the-scenes political battle between Shyamalan and the Disney executives who didn’t want to lose their jobs by distributing such a dud. The infighting culminated in a notorious scene at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia where an angry Shyamalan threw down his napkin and stormed away from a dinner meeting with “the suits” who, after previewing the final cut, had flown across the country to personally beg him to rewrite the script. (Historical Note: The film eventually came out without a re-write and the executives indeed lost their jobs when it flopped.)

If I met M. Night Shyamalan today, I would ask him one question: Where did we go wrong? The Sixth Sense is one of the 10 best films of all times. Unbreakable is an underrated classic. He wouldn’t admit it, but the answer is The Village, his third major release. Shyamalan was stung by the heavy criticism of the movie and, in my opinion, started to believe the experts who said that his film’s hallmark surprise endings had inevitably turned into an Achilles’ heel because it was impossible to surprise an audience who came to the theater expecting a surprise. Both Signs and Lady in the Water, neither of which included a twist ending, proved that the experts were wrong. Twist endings are not Shyamalan’s problem. But I digress.

Back to The Happening. It sucks and nothing happens. Wait, did I say that already?

If after reading this review you still spend good gas money to see this film, you will wish that a certain wind blows by the home of everyone who played a part in green-lighting it. You will go from wondering if Shyamalan has lost his touch to being sure of it. Your date will be pissed, not just because you saw a bad movie, but also because the bad movie lacked enough content for interesting dinner conversation.

Here’s a happening for you: On my way out the theater I thought I saw Bruce Willis crouched on one knee talking to a little boy. As I passed by, it sounded like the boy whispered, “I see dead movies.”