An Important Film For The Superhero Genre

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2019)

Why am I reviewing a 19 year old film? Because it's one of my all time favorites and because I believe it stands out as something special among all the comic book and superhero films out there
Unbreakable is a meta take (as in self aware) on comic book genre that was way ahead of it's time. I saw it for the first time maybe 6 years ago. Over the years as my knowledge of film and storytelling expanded, Unbreakable became special to me because it's a superhero story told in one of the most unique ways I've ever seen. We don't have big CGI monsters battling it out with a big beam in the sky in the background.
It's a slow burn drama of a super hero on a journey of self discovery. M. Night presents a question and then takes his characters on a journey where they figure out the answers to those questions. The question here is that is David Dunn, the protagonist who is the only survivor of a train wreck, a real life superhero?
And as Elijah, a crippled supporting character who has a rare condition that causes his bones to break easily and who has spent most of his life in hospital doing nothing but reading comics, presents these questions to David, we the audience also go on a journey with David as M. Night continually builds on the major question that is being asked here. Whether David has ever been injured, if David has a weakness like superheroes do and so on. The whole film is a back and forth between the beliefs of David and Elijah as they have totally opposite beliefs about this possibility.
Unbreakable is not only a drama but it's a puzzle that's why you can also classify it as a mystery thriller because whether David is a superhero or not is a mystery and figuring out the truth and lengths characters go to to figure it out is the real thrill of the film here.
Another thing that makes Unbreakable so special is it's grounded nature. Rarely do you see a superhero film that is so close to reality and that adds a lot of weight to the story because there's this sense of awe and wonder from both the audience and the characters when M Night begins to play the possibility of David being a real life superhero.
The cinematography in this is some of the best I've ever seen in a superhero film. It pays homage to wide frames and panels of comic books as most scenes take place in a single take and that is just remarkable because they're all done seamlessly. There are also only a handful amount of cuts as in most scenes, instead of cutting to another shot, M Night pans back or across the frame to reveal certain things. The cinematography plays a huge part in telling this story because even though M. Night uses a lot of vivid colors and foreshadowing, he follows the rule of show don't tell as much as possible which is exactly what film making is about - show don't tell.
The score in this film? My god, one of the most moving scores I've ever heard. I can't praise James Newton Howard enough for making this masterpiece. It evokes a sense of grandness that is needed to accompany the seriousness of the story because the questions the film is asking is indeed very serious - are there real life superheroes among us?
Even though this film is old, I feel like I'd be doing it a disservice by spoiling it for anyone who hasn't seen it but there are certain things I'd like to say without spoiling the third act.
Ultimately, Unbreakable is about purpose, discovering our purpose and at times, how far we're willing to go to prove that purpose is indeed real and not fabricated to make ourselves feel important. So in a way it's about desperation too. It's also about emotional damage and how sometimes certain events in our life can shape us into something and lead us to believe something that may not be true. Those who have seen the film and have spent time thinking about it will understand exactly what I'm saying here. The emotional punch of the last 10 minutes of this film is so immense that it makes me tear up sometimes because of the subtext behind THAT ending.
My final rating is 8.0/10. It is one of the most important superhero films ever made and if you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and see it!