Utter waste of time...

Rating: 4/10 (22 September 2003)

I'm usually very selective when I watch movies and have a knack for avoiding things that I "know" I won't like. Unfortunately, there are two drawbacks with my "intuition". Firstly, I obviously miss out on the odd great film due to the classic book-by-it's-cover prejudice. Secondly, when my sixth sense fails me (pun painfully intended) and I watch a movie that I should have steered far clear of it's, well... to put it politely, basically very annoying.

After being reluctantly convinced by my girlfriend to spend two hours in front of the TV watching "Unbreakable" with her, it's safe to say that I'm very annoyed (I had a feeling I wouldn't like it, but the things we do for love, eh?). Oddly enough, the only other movie I can honestly say I have felt this annoyed with, after the end credits have rolled by, is "Signs". Go figure...
The acting in "Unbreakable" was fine under the circumstances, Willis and Jackson seldom let you down in any film. The music was fine (although misused in places, I thought, but hardly anything worth losing sleep over). The camerawork and editing was fine, even inspired on occasions, the scene with the curtains blowing in front of the camera comes especially to mind. But if the story doesn't work, the movie doesn't work (unless we're talking about porn...and we're not)
The film presented a fairly interesting premise and went downhill from there. It starts out with nothing really happening followed by nothing in particular. After some uneventful flashbacks, some empty dialog and a melodramatic kid with a gun, the story builds up to a fairly uninteresting rescue scene. I'm not asking for a 15-minute action sequence or over-the-top heroics here, it just felt unmotivated and tame (don't even get me started on that whole water-kryptonite analogy). Odd, since this scene was supposed to be Willis' character's defining moment of clarity and realization of "what he truly was" (already forgotten his name...I finished watching the movie 1 hour ago, that says something, doesn't it?)
After the "climax" I patiently awaited the trademark twist. Now, I've seen and enjoyed "The Sixth Sense" (not my favorite film but a 7/10 at any rate) and I truly thought that the plot-twist was intelligent and well-written. Going on that experience, I placed what little faith I had in the hands of Mr. Shyamalan, hoping that he could at least come up with something to salvage the time and effort of hundreds of hard-working craftsmen who wasted their time making this movie, and the time and effort I spent watching this.

Needless to say, I thought that the final unveiling of the "shocking truth" pretty much summed it up; Tame, uninteresting and quite silly to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I love silly. I gladly rank "Wayne's World" and "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" alongside, say, "Midnight Cowboy" or "Lawrence Of Arabia" on my personal list of favorites. But they at least were trying to be silly whereas "Unbreakable" was just a failure.
Face it, he lucked out with "The Sixth Sense". He's a one hit wonder. Many people (for some reason) compare Shyamalan to Hitchcock which I think says something about Shyamalan's fans (the ones who enjoyed "Signs" and "Unbreakable" at any rate).
Shyamalan makes smart, challenging films for stupid people.
In a few words: Don't bother... 4/10