Unbreakable was directed by M. Night Shyamalan who also directed The Sixth Sense. The trailers tell you about a man, David Dunn (Bruce Willis) who is the only survivor of a train crash that kills the other 131 passengers. Samuel L. Jackson plays Elijah Price, a sickly, feeble, and fragile proprietor of comic book art who has been searching for the man he believes to be his exact opposite and believes he has found him in David. There is a slight subplot to be found in the form of an estranged wife (Robin Wright) and David's son (Spencer Treat Clark) trying to reconnect as a family.
Shyamalan presents an ordinary world with an extraordinary possibility: that a man with superhuman powers may exist in our world without knowing that he possesses those qualities. These abilities may be masked under the guise of extraordinary athletic prowess (like Tiger Woods ;-) ), outrageous luck and fortune, or simply in a life that is so ordinary that there is no situational catalyst that will reveal these abilities. We are given a catalyst in the form of a train crash and now David must examine and reevaluate what he believes to be true about his world.
From a technical standpoint, the movie is elegantly filmed and choreographed. The movie has the haunting quality and mysterious visuals of The Sixth Sense. Red is the color motif used in The Sixth Sense to tell us that something otherworldly is happening. Here it is the spectrum of colors that you see in bright contrast to the rest of the world. The mystery presented is allowed to unfold with grace and dignity through the quiet dialogue of the actors and through various, very commonplace venues. I enjoyed watching this movie for its storytelling virtuosity.
On the other hand, the movie does force you to suspend your disbelief at various moments. Because it was directed better than most movies of its genre, suspending my disbelief was not a great effort (as it was in M: I-2). Still, I found myself slipping now and then into MST-3K mode as the film's flow slipped from time to time revealing what could be seen as overacting, silly plot points, and bits of gratuitous artsy fodder. One irritating thing about the movie is that Shyamalan tries to keep an air of mystery about the entire first half. Characters speak in hushed whispers or in the low tones of speaking in confidence. Sometimes a scene would take so long to play out, I wanted to leap through the screen and start slapping people about so that they'd get a faster clue. Remembering that the movie is trying to tell its story in an unusual way helps to put these devices back into context. In short, in the right frame of mind, or wrong one, depending on your point of view, this could easily become a very funny bad movie with a hysterical exclamation point. For those people, my sister and I have generated a drive-in list to add to your viewing pleasure.
Whether you are in either frame of mind, you will find the last 30 seconds of the movie either very disappointing or hysterically stupid. One of my pet peeves is watching movies that don't know when to quit. Someone in Hollywood always seems to add those unnecessary scenes or couple of minutes that either try to re-finish a movie whose ending we had already determined, add an unnecessary happy spin for the benefit of the mythical, lowest common denominator of movie watcher, or to hammer home some moral or message that we "didn't quite get" using a voice-over or written bits on the screen. Some really bad last minute endings include The Russia House and the original Blade Runner with the Harrison Ford voice-over. In Unbreakable, someone thought to tamper with the movie's final moments and the result is nothing short of horrible.
Except for those 30 seconds, I recommend Unbreakable as a decent movie to watch, with only some bad moments that should make you chuckle when you think back on them. Many viewers were expecting another Sixth Sense type movie and were disappointed. This is simply a different kind of story. If Shyamalan is to be faulted, it may be in not giving in to the alternate genre more completely to give those parts more punch. I give it a 7 out of 10 on the Good movie scale and a 4 out of 10 on the Bad movie scale - and I also give it a 3 out of 10 on the Good movie scale and a 7 out of 10 on the Bad movie scale to make my skeptical side happy as well.
Our Drive-In Totals:
No breasts
4 dead bodies
27 broken bones
1 Glass cane
Samuel Jackson Bad Hair Movie
Paint-lifting
573 comic books
2 comic book screen savers
1 clueless shopping father
Gratuitous speaking in hushed voices
1 evil(?) hockey team
The color red
The color orange
The color green
The color blue
The color purple
1 "Who was that Masked Man?" moment
3 odd hopscotch diagrams
2 Flashbacks
3 Home Safety lessons;
- Don't lift 200+ lb weights with a 12 year-old spotter.
- Don't use guns to test your dad's unbreakableness.
- Use the heavy door with the deadbolt to keep out the intruder,
not the fragile screen door that opens out.
The "Black Gun With Silver Handle"
1 Kryptonite reference
1 Teletubbies reference
1 fake-looking, man-shaped indentation in wall
1 gratuitous epilogue that kills movie
Kung Fu
Bottle Fu
Gun Fu
Stair Fu
Wall Fu
Cord Fu
Swimming Pool Fu
Car Fu
Train Fu
Bomb Fu
Wheelchair Fu
Good Movie Scale: 7 (or 3) out of 10
Bad Movie Scale: 4 (or 7) out of 10
