Purple Rain

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2019)

In preparation for the upcoming "Glass" I decided to rewatch "Unbreakable" to remind me of the early adventures of David Dunn.
Dunn, played by Bruce Willis, is lone survivor of a train derailment who inexplicably doesn't have a scratch on him. The reporting of the event brings him to the attention of Elijah Price (Sam Jackson) a man with hyper brittle bones caused by Osteogenesis Imperfecta. Inspired by seeing the opposite of his fragile body, and by a life of reading comic books, Elijah attempts to investigate and then convince Dunn that he is a hero and should be using his gifts.
Firstly, I was stuck on how much of "Unbreakable" I remembered, despite it being a few years since I last saw it. Back when M Night Shyamalan could do no wrong, his trademark twist in this one seems obvious, even overplayed, once you know it. Though I do remember, whilst not on a "Sixth Sense" level, this was a pretty solid twist the first time I saw it. Though Shyamalan's twists became his "trademark", eventually to his detriment, there are a lot of other key traits of his in "Unbreakable" that remain there to be admired. Shot framing and particularly camera movement are excellent. The longs takes and limited cutting also are striking, with occasionally deciding to keep the character on one person in a conversation, and look at their reactions, rather than drifting backwards and forwards. The colour palette usage is also nicely done.
"Unbreakable" feels very much like what it was apparently originally envisioned to be. It's the first third of a superhero film (the character establishing section) stretch out to a full length feature. As a result it does feel a bit of an unusual film. There isn't many of the beats you would expect, it's mostly Dunn putting his family back together and coming to accept who he is (or who he might be). The films climax comes from catching a murderer who is not mentioned prior to the previous scene this occurs in. A more traditional film might have built that character more across the runtime, before having Dunn oppose him, but "Unbreakable" is more interested in the relationship between Dunn and Price.
I'm not sure that the pacing would allow the film to stand up to too many repeated viewings, but as a film seen once every so often it very much stands up - and I'm looking forward to a proper return for Dunn and Price in "Glass".