Are you ready for the truth?

Rating: 10/10 (10 November 2002)

SUMMARY
Following his immense success of "The Sixth Sense", director M. Night Shyamalan gives an entirely different kind of story here as there are no ghosts to be found anywhere in this tale. Here we meet a man who appears on the surface to be a regular working guy with no real special traits about him at all named David Dunne (played by Bruce Willis from "Die Hard" and "The Sixth Sense"). Dunne's life is not what it used to be, he is estranged from his wife while still living in the same house trying to look after his son Jeremy (played by Spencer Treat Clark from ""). Everything changes when he is the only survivor of a massive train wreak and comes into the company of a bizarre individual named Elijah Price (played by Samuel L. Jackson from "True Romance" and "The Caveman's Valentine").
REVIEW
Having your first major theatrically released film gross more than $600 million dollars world wide can be considered to be both a curse as well as a blessing. On one hand, writer/director M. Night Shyamalan had no trouble in securing another project and being given the freedom to do it, the other side of the coin was that everyone expected him to top that first film, "The Sixth Sense". The problem being, beside the fact that "The Sixth Sense" was a masterful feature, it was also a fluke among Hollywood and made the majority of its money based on word of mouth as well as the publics ability keep the secret of the ending in tact. This is an unfair thing to do to anyone as there is absolutely no way of knowing exactly how the public is going to react to a movie no matter how hard you try and market it. "Unbreakable" was aided by having the perfect example of how a trailer should be made. It gave us a glimpse at a few characters, showed us some intense looking scenes aboard the train and then only the masterful dialogue as spoken by Samuel L. Jackson to close us out. It was deeply intriguing, while at the same time it gave away nothing so far as important plot points went. It must be stressed here that "Unbreakable" is nothing at all like "The Sixth Sense" and anyone coming into it hoping of a little more of the same overall are going to be horribly disappointed.
"Unbreakable" is not the kind of movie that is made very often anymore, a deep story that manages to involve a certain element of fantasy while still never moving to far away from events that we believe actually could happen. What we have here is a super-hero movie, one where there is no one who wears a cape, there are no tights and no one shoots lasers from their finger tips. Perhaps a few aspects of "Unbreakable" were a little to subtle for its own good, just perhaps it tried to be a little to clever for a mass audience. When you sit back afterwards, when the ending sinks in and you think back to all the many clues that lead to that point it will hit you how brilliant this screenplay was. It is so easy to miss something because a times "Unbreakable" is rather light on dialogue instead relying on scenery, gestures or facial expressions to get a point across. Without a doubt it forces you to pay attention and while some people complain the pace is a little to slow it was necessary to get from one point to another.
Being so subtle and trying to make such a fine point about the relevance about comic books is bound to elicit strong emotions from people who see this one. Essentially you will be very likely to either love it or seriously hate it for a multitude of reasons. If you were a comic book fanatic when you were a child then this movie just might mean a little something more to you than it will to other people who "just wont get" certain parts. It is not a fast movie, it takes its time in telling the story and it does run just under two hours in length, but could only really have been shortened by five minutes at a maximum. If you are looking for a "Batman", "Spider Man" or other like super-hero movies then this one might not be your cup of tea.
The second time around with Bruce Willis with M. Night Shyamalan is decidedly better than his first trip. Being one of the weaker elements of "The Sixth Sense" in that he was completely outshone by young Haley Joel Osment. This time around he is the star, rising a few levels above even the master himself, Samuel L. Jackson. Willis is spot on here as the everyman hero, the poor father who works at a virtually dead end job doing something that he cannot at first understand why he has gotten himself into. As we see him slowly begin to learn his place in the world it means a lot more because we have spent the time to get to know him and his life before anything thrilling takes place. "Unbreakable" is a rewarding experience if you give it the chance to soak in and appreciate its finer details.