Underappreciated *major spoilers*

Rating: 9/10 (3 May 2004)

I can't see why people had such a hard time with this movie. Maybe people were expecting the thrills and chills of The Sixth Sense. This a muted film, dripping with quiet moments and an overall feeling of sadness. Yes, there were a few scenes I would've cut given the chance (Dunn's son and the gun, especially,) but mostly, this is a simple movie with a theme that is both simple and thought-provoking. It's about comic books, archetypes, and modern myths. It's a superhero origin story that doesn't go for something flashy. Yes, if you were expecting the color and spectacle of Superman/Spider-man/Batman, etc., you'd be really disappointed. This is about a regular guy played perfectly by Bruce Willis discovering that he has super-strength. You see Dunn go from an average man to a hero, a mysterious, cloaked iconic sketch on the front page of a newspaper. He is living in a world of comic book figures that are still familiar in the real world. He discovers a mentor of sorts in Elijah, the comic store owner who suffers from a rare disease. The "twist" that this director loves to put in his movies really shocked me.

"Unbreakable" is the origin story of a villain, too. The total opposite of Dunn's superman. I loved Jackson's line "Now that we know who you are, I know who I am." Of course Elijah is the villain - he's lonely, he's disfigured, he's an outcast, and he has crazy ideas. But the lines between his genius and insanity are very, very blurry until the last few minutes. I felt a huge amount of sympathy for this character, until Elijah shared his criminal secrets. He is the total opposite of Dunn, not just physically, but morally as well. The little coda at the end was perfect, too, with Elijah going to "an asylum for the criminally insane." He goes to Arkham! If this movie were a comic book, naturally, Elijah would escape to cause more mayhem, like all great evil geniuses.
This is a wonderful movie for comic book fans, people who enjoy the myths of superheroes, and enjoy seeing those same formulas twisted around in an interesting way. I liked this movie almost as much as "The Sixth Sense" (that movie felt a bit better-paced) and a lot more than "Signs" (that movie felt forced to me.)