a lame 6th Sense and 1/2

Rating: 4/10 (29 November 2000)

Well, I kind of feel bad to add yet another negative review, but, hey, this ain't Florida after all and I want to properly cast my vote (which, by the way, was overrated at 6/10, oops ! should have given Unbreakable not more than 4).
I always thought Buddy Night Shyamalan was an okay director, the kind of smart rookie that really took everybody by surprise last year (me included) with his brilliant yet slow paced 6th Sense. But, man, this time, he REALLY missed his goal, and trust me, he will NOT get another $10 milion + for his next project or I'm out of here. Unbreakable is certainly nicely photographed and loaded with an amazing sound design, but this is supposed to be a MOTION picture, not a slides show with a nice digital sound background. Unbreakable is unbelievable, poorly written, unbearably slow, pretty much senseless AND pointless, for it is (very) loosely based on a weak plot made of comic books memorabilia and vague issues. Worst, Bruce W occasionally articulates some fuzzy phrases out of his static mouth, but that's it, talk about a paper-thin character!
On the other hand, I really liked Samuel L. Jackson mean spirited, aggressive, edgy character, that nobody will root for, but, hey, doesn't the audience love to hate? Besides that, I could not care less about the overrated G versus E stuff, which at least shows that M. Night Shyamalan lacks of real directorial skills, and is completely unable to give consistency and basic believability to such a common, linear plot. Where he shows his great craft in cinematography and original (but sometimes lengthy) shots, he fails in lifting his already fragile story structure with real, consistent characters, all of them who end being trapped in the plot numerous potholes.
Eventually, this movie lacks emotion, real conflict, developed characters (not those paperboard ones, save for Elijah) and A PLOT, for Pete's sake. Where IS the FULL plot??? What the heck is going on here? After 30 minutes, everything comes together, every action becomes annoyingly predictable or redundant, Bruce W. keeps mumbling and giving us this absurd spaniel-like moist, worried look. Then everything else is futile, so why Sir M. Night keeps goin' on? Never heard of story structure that makes... sense? Should have gone to film school man!