UNBEATABLE-when you "Get It"

Rating: 8/10 (26 October 2007)

Contains a Lot Of Spoilers
Unbreakable by Night Shayamalan is a story about a superhero. Shayamalan's interpretation of superhero is between the exaggerated comic book Super hero, and a normal everyday type of hero-like a police officer. To summarize the storyline, David Dunn is the sole survivor of a horrible train wreck, which brings him into the attention of an art dealer, Elijah Price, Elijah has some genetic abnormality which makes his bones very, very weak. David Dunn is a father and is also having marriage problems, but discovers that he can do extraordinary things.
Now that the formalities are finished, did I like the movie? After my initial viewing, it left a bad taste in my mouth, I still liked the movie, but I didn't "get it". Not that anyone that doesn't like the movie doesn't get it, but here's why I didn't like it initially.
The movie ends very abruptly, we go from discovering he is really a super hero, to ending very rapidly, and I felt as if that was rushed. Then again, the climax of movies like The Usual Suspects, The Matrix and The Sixth sense is also based on an abrupt ending, but the delivery here was a bit off. Despite that, the Movie is very good, that's why I gave it a rating of 8, it lost 2 stars because of the abrupt ending, but the movie is exceptional for the reasons given below.
Explanation-Spoilers
It's difficult to understand the movie on the first viewing, because of many things, one of those is because of preconceived notion of superheroes. The clichéd superhero movies like the X-men, I kept on waiting for a mad scientist to explain how David Dunn was a mutant because of Gamma ray radiation, but no such explanation came, which was again part of the movies message. The Movie is about a superhero in a real-world type of situation. In fact, Elijah Price repeatedly on many occasions stresses the fact that comic books are an exaggeration of the real world, that is the central theme of this movie. Even when we are introduced to Elijah as an adult, in the very first scene he explains how the original comic book depictions were different from the one's released commercially, that the one's released commercially were an exaggeration. Central theme, which is repeated over and over again. The problem is when you watch this movie expected one type of movie, instead of more of a human drama, involving a hero and his arch-enemy. We are taken on a journey, revealing that David Dunn is indeed a super hero.
Typical comic Hero
1. At least one person knows their secret, and is their side kick. (David Dunn's son) 2. The woman in the hero's life doesn't know their secret(David Dunn's wife) 3. Weakness(water) 4. Arch-enemy, who is the opposite of the hero(Elijah)
Typical comic Villain
1. Troubled youth 2. Very intelligent 3. Believes that the ends justify the means, even if the means require the deaths of thousands 4. Criminally insane
This movie parallels a Typical comic book perfectly, so the movie achieved exactly what it set out to achieve.
What's brilliant is that, even at the end of the movie, we are given a hint that Elijah is an arch villain. Elijah's mother tells us about how arch-villains are portrayed in comics. They have larger eyes to indicate that they have a slightly bigger eyes to indicate that they have a skewed way of looking at reality.
Anyways, yep, the Movie was Exceptional, once you get it.