Really good, just short of greatness.

Rating: Null/10 (6 June 2001)

*Unbreakable* is a very good movie that falls short of greatness.
M. Night Shyamalan's direction is in top form. There was hardly a scene in the movie where I wasn't consciously thinking, wow, cool. The direction isn't so much flashy as adamantly non-traditional. He seems to have a preoccupation with mirrors. Many scenes are filmed as reflections off of mirrors, TV screens, or glass cases. The glass does have symbolic value, as does the reflection. Some shots are upside down. One scene is shot from behind curtains being beat by the wind, so you intermittently see the action in between. Conversations are frequently filmed from far away. Oh, and he uses a lot of one-take shots. I love and have a lot of respect for one-take shots. He plays with the camera, hardly ever doing what we think he'll do.
As the opening text intro will tell you, the movie is about comic books. You didn't know that, did you? Yes, apparently Mr. Shyamalan read one too many comic books as a kid, and he dreamed up a movie about the idea that maybe the ideals of comic books can occur in real life, and he then struck a nerve in me because he tackles one of my favorite themes, that of the duality of things. To have good, you must have evil. To have the unbreakable, you must have the breakable.
Bruce Willis is one of my favorite actors, as is Samuel L. Jackson, and they don't disappoint.
Did I mention Shyamalan's use of color? Like in *The Sixth Sense* where he used the color red to signify...I forget, I haven't seen it in a while...but anyway, here he again uses bright color for symbolic value. If you pay attention, it will help you figure out the ending. Yes, I now realize how dumb I was for not seeing the ending coming. And the movie ends. And it has two wholly unnecessary text impositions denoting the fates of the two main characters, and they are way out of place and I wish they weren't there. According to IMDb, they weren't there originally, and I don't understand why Shyamalan, who, as I have pointed out, is an obviously competent director, put them in. And I am left with a feeling that something was missing from the movie. It didn't achieve its full potential. It had a very intriguing idea, and he used it well, but...something was missing. He could have done more with it, I don't know. Extended the meditation, the philosophy, to mean more.
The music is very good as well. Very atmospheric. I liked it.
So don't believe people who tell you it's crap, because it most definitely isn't. I think some people may be completely and utterly satisfied by it. I can't pinpoint where it went wrong. You might not think it goes wrong at all.