Landing flat on the thin line between being incredibly cool and incredibly silly.

Rating: Null/10 (4 December 2000)

"Unbreakable" shares many positive attributes with its predecessor, "The Sixth Sense", not including the creepy, Philadelphia setting. It too, is excitingly original, deftly mixes moments of genuine humor with episodes of human tragedy, features an excellent performance by a child actor, and above all, expertly inflicts on us chilling moments that will make you jump out of your seat while at the same time avoiding the distinction of actually being a horror film.
Also like "The Sixth Sense", Willis makes a remarkable discovery about himself. What that discovery is lands flat on the thin line between being incredibly cool and incredibly silly. I'll side marginally with incredibly cool since Shyamalan's concept and execution is so original, and it's hard not to like a filmmaker who's production office is in Conshohocken, PA.
That said, the movie's primary flaw is its slack pace. Bruce makes the discovery early on (there's another surprise at the end) and you'll wish his revelation had been explored more during the film's second act. Then, when things finally get going in Act Three, we're hit with an ending that feels too abrupt -- you'll yearn for a more thorough confrontation (you'll also feel like this was all a set-up for a sequel).
If "Unbreakable" and "The Sixth Sense" belong to the same family tree, then the newer branch is one that goes off in a much wilder direction. Both films deal with the isolation of being "different" as viewed through the prism of an everyman. But where the first film also deals essentially with loss, this time the focus is more on the evolution of myths and the reflective nature of reality and fantasy in a manner that pays the ultimate tribute to comic book geeks everywhere. Wait, maybe I've said too much!...