It's like the Sixth Sense but without the fun!

Rating: Null/10 (15 January 2001)

If you'd just written and directed the surprise smash-hit of 1999, been nominated for an Oscar and had the world waiting for your follow-up, you'd want to rush off a sequel, too. But The Sixth Sense isn't exactly the kind of movie which lends itself to franchise. Bearing this in mind, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan should have thrown his considerable talent into an entirely new project with the innovation and immediacy of its predecessor. What he has done in Unbreakable (although it's not actually a sequel) is to reprise so many of those elements which made his previous effort so exciting - Bruce Willis, a child lead, some psychic phenomena, a struggling relationship, a fantastic twist - that his distinctive and previously refreshing brand of filmmaking is in serious danger of appearing formulaic.
This time round our Brucie plays David Dunn, a stadium security guard whose life is turned upside down when he becomes the sole survivor of a catastrophic train derailment. After meeting Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a comic-book fanatic with a rare brittle bone condition and an even rarer selection of casualwear, David undergoes a journey of self-discovery in which he - and the audience - are led to wonder whether his lucky escape really was a coincidence, or, in fact, a demonstration of his own supernatural abilities.
Willis and Jackson, together on screen for the first time since Die Hard With A Vengeance, retain their on-screen chemistry, and there are some fine supporting performances from Robin Wright Penn, as David's fragile spouse, and Spencer Trent Clark, who stands somewhat in the shadow of The Sixth Sense's Hayley Joel Osmond, but is a convincing child actor nonetheless. As a director, Shyamalan has some fantastic ideas, and simply by juxtaposing a spinning and static image he is capable of transporting us from a psychological view of his characters to a sensitivity of the world's wider dangers. He is on tried and tested turf with all the extra-sensory malarkey his plot provides, but effectively embellishes the paranoia of his protagonists (and keeps the audience appropriately weary of their own perceptions) through his impressive willingness to experiment with the camera: entire scenes are revealed on the reflection of a television screen, or through a curtain rippling in the wind.
The constant use of scary music and lingering camerawork does build suspense when it's needed, but it also highlights the weakness of the script when it's not. The plot, ingenious as it is as high-concept, quickly loses direction, and becomes too far-fetched to be plausible. And the comic-book imagery is well-executed, but seems to belong to another movie entirely. It's a film that doesn't really kick in until it's almost over, and - most disappointing of all for Sixth Sense fans - it lacks emotional conviction. This movie wants to leave you shaken and epiphanic, but instead makes you wonder exactly what the point is. It may be more intelligent than your standard mainstream fare, but it doesn't have the common sense to know whether it's commercial or spiritual; flamboyant or low-key; popcorn or profound. Everyone was hoping that Unbreakable would be like The Sixth Sense. It's biggest flaw is. it tries to be like The Sixth Sense. How about that for a twist. *** (3 stars)