Another botched attempt at the real greatness

Rating: 7/10 (26 November 2005)

It's one of those movies that could have been truly great and ended up as only quite good.
Shyamalan takes an unoriginal idea and gives it a completely new spin. At the cursory glance, it's a typical movie about a hero struggling with his awakening powers. Just like any other comic-book story. The difference is, it doesn't feel like a comic-book story. The movie doesn't have the right atmosphere, has no flashiness at all, no fantastic events. All in all, it has no comic-book accessories. It is basically about the same thing as 'Spiderman' but gives a totally different impression. Only Shyamalan could make a comic-book story look like a gritty human drama. You really have to admire the man. Then again, there's The Moment. Never since 'A.I.' could I pinpoint the very scene, where the movie takes the turn in a completely wrong direction, with such certainty. Only, 'A.I' went bad and kept on going even badder, while 'Unbreakable' managed to recuperate at least some of the losses and strike again with an interesting, if pretty bizarre, ending. It was the last desperate attempt to redeem itself but the harm could not really be undone. When such things like The Moment happen, they stay happened forever.
The Moment, actually, doesn't last more than three minutes. Three paltry minutes that somehow spoil all the other 103 minutes around them. Ironically, if the scene was slightly edited, 'Unbreakable' would turn into the great movie that the beginning promised. Even the ending would make more sense. With a few small changes in one single scene, 'Unbreakable' would be one of the best movies I've ever seen. What is that bitter taste in my mouth? Is it disappointment? The strongest point of the first hour of the movie, e.g. the good part, is its ambiguity. We can't know for sure that Bruce Willis is really all that special. He was the sole survivor of a terrible catastrophe, but he could just have had extraordinary luck. He discovers that he can lift two times more weight than before, but he could simply be a very strong guy, who wasn't aware of his own physical potential. He lifted the car to save his girlfriend, but people are capable of seemingly impossible feats if the life of their loved ones is on the line. We don't have any conclusive proof that it was all caused by some supernatural factor. The narrative is strictly subjective. We are never quite sure that Samuel L. Jackson's far-fetched theory is something more than wishful thinking.
Then comes The Moment. Bruce Willis goes among people, gets a couple of low-res highly detailed visions, that could under no circumstances be given natural explanation, and all the intriguing uncertainty is suddenly lost. Bruce Willis goes after a bad guy and saves the day, half-drowning on the way. He joins the ranks of Superman, Spiderman and, uhm... that's really not my field of expertise. Ironman? Anyway, he becomes a true hero. As the immediate consequence, the movie stops being interesting.
Without The Moment the ending would have been brilliant. 'Unbreakable' would have been a movie about a fanatic, who tries to force the world to play along with his insane ideas. Who, on his mission to make his vision real, disregards completely human lives. A beautiful case of megalomania. Also an excellent example of the force of conviction. He actually succeeds in creating his hero, the hero that he thinks himself destined to counterpart. An ordinary, gentle, peaceful man rises to the occasion, manages to reach the level that the self-appointed villain designed for him. Only to learn that all the way he was manipulated by a self-righteous maniac. The irony so delightfully perverse, that it sends shivers down the spine.
Only, it was not to be. Why, Shyamalan? Why didn't you see it? Why did you have to make The Moment instead and ruin everything? Did you jump into the puddle of triteness willingly or was it an unfortunate slip? That I will never know.
After it becomes unmistakably clear that Bruce Willis is, indeed, a superhuman with psychic powers, the movie suddenly loses its momentum. The fact that the only action sequence of the movie, therefore supposedly the most entertaining one, is just around the corner, doesn't matter at all. It's not even a little bit exciting. Bruce Willis is indestructible now, for Pete's sake. Of course he's going to win. The hero in spandex always wins. That's one of the main rules of a comic-book story and the plot suddenly became one, so all the standards apply.
What's even sadder, this way the ending feels definitely lacking. I called it 'interesting, if pretty bizarre' earlier. That's still truth. It's interesting, because it takes you by surprise and wraps up Samuel L. Jackson's character really nicely. It's bizarre, and not good-bizarre at that, because it doesn't fit as an ending. It doesn't bring closure, not for the main character. In the No-Moment imaginary version of the movie, it wouldn't be the problem, because the accents would shift, Bruce Willis wouldn't be the focus point any more. In the real-life version, he still is. His story is left incomplete. And I am left dissatisfied.