Broken

Rating: 6/10 (4 December 2015)

Unbreakable is a slow-paced, bizarre mystery/superhero movie. The acting by the two leads is good, especially by Willis. The score, I believe is the best thing about the movie; it is simultaneously soaring and grim. The camera work/direction is intriguing at first, but the repeated experimenting with weird camera angles and positions doesn't add anything to the story and only highlights the fact that we're watching a movie. The concept is where the movie really loses track though.
SPOILERS AHEAD The movie expounds on a scenario in which one man learns he has superpowers, and tries to depict how this might play out, realistically, in today's society. What it fails to realise is that the inclusion of superpowers immediately nullifies any possibility of the proceedings being plausible. And so, the movie takes itself way too seriously. As a result, the movie is neither an exciting superhero movie with outlandish yet entertaining characters and situations, nor is it a believable character study on real world human beings; the movie therefore ultimately treads the line between the two, with mediocre outcomes. First out, the beginning to the movie was good and interesting, with the train crash bringing much intrigue over Willis' character's possible 'unbreakability'.
I first felt the movie began to go downhill when the Samuel L Jackson character(Elijah) was introduced on screen, because in the first of many monologues he says something along the lines of " I believe comics are a window to history.." and then goes on to glorify how comics will forever represent humanity's recollection of history and other such ludicrous dialogue, that the proceedings are strongly shaken off their foundations, truly vibe-kill. At various points in the film he states that there originally is a particular way in which heroes and villains exist, but that they are greatly eschewed in the comics of the time. So while he glorifies comics as windows into our pasts, he also detests them for there less than accurate portrayal of good vs evil. Great character consistency.
After much plodding and persistence, Elijah succeeds in convincing David to wonder about his health. Sometime during the movie we find out that David and his wife were involved in a car accident several years ago, with all the papers headlined "Local football star injured in near fatal car accident". Elijah alleges that David wasn't injured during the accident, but "faked it" because he wanted to find reason to end his football career, which in turn was because he loved Audrey very much and was willing to give up a career in football for her. So, David simply fakes that he was badly injured after the accident, and of course the media and the doctors and the nurses and all people simply take his word for it, and so does Audrey, because she too cites the car accident as a reason for David's not having been able to play football anymore. I just do not get how David managed to convince everyone he was so badly injured that he couldn't pursue a career in football anymore, when he clearly WASN'T injured. Whatever the plot needs, I guess.
The son with a gun scene was undoubtedly the best scene in the movie, because it was hilarious. "Friends don't hurt each other.", or something along those lines, was simply unintentionally hilarious.
From the information that David once nearly drowned in a swimming pool in his childhood, Elijah cooks up a fantastical theory about how they both have something in common and that is, their weakness- Water. And that is when Elijah comes to the epic conclusion that water chokes people when it enters there lungs. He says "Water is his kryptonite", and while that sounds intense, it is actually incorrect, because water would have been David's kryptonite, only if it was harmless to other humans, but the one thing that Elijah doesn't understand is that all humans can choke on water and die. But, this speech about his weakness is a pep talk for David, because very soon he's convinced that he is a superhero and wants to put his powers to use. He observes many criminals, and reasoning that there acts aren't gruesome enough for his intervention, he searches till he finds a murderer and goes after the man. He kills the man and saves the children and leaves. The next day he shows his son his escapade and tells him not to tell mom. For someone who killed a man last night, for the first time in his life, and realized the implications of his superpowers, David is really chilled out. The end however is underwhelming, with the rest of the movie being about only one thing- David either having or not having superpowers, with information for and against this motion having been provided to us alternatively. David shakes Elijah's hand for the first time, apparently, and thus sees the true horror of Elijah's actions. It's rather odd that in their many interactions, David and Elijah never happened to have brushed past each other previously. But okay, well that's the way it happened, so okay. It was revealed that Elijah is responsible for several major mishaps in the world(or was it city?). How he actually does manage to wreak havoc in so many places is left hanging. He's shown to mull around gathering vital stats and information for his plan and then executing it(the train crash incident). Keep in mind that this man who has supposedly committed grave acts of terror, was not really able to come down a flight of stairs at a hint of a pace, earlier in the movie. His plan to find a hero is frankly very inefficient, but I guess you shouldn't blame bad guys for being bad at what they do.
Ultimately, Unbreakable fails due to the method of execution of its concept and certain weak points in plot. Despite all this, some scenes are engrossing.