The first 30 minutes of a movie

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2001)

If one made a better movie out of this one, this film would be the first 30 minutes of it. As it is, Shyamalan stretches a good short story to almost 2 hrs and makes it worthwhile only with his excellent direction, a well-written script and memorable characters.
Just as in his previous film, "The 6th Sense", Shyamalan demonstrates his ability to power-up his scenes with almost nothing at all - no crying, no shouting, no running around. Some sequences in this film are very powerful, and the most powerful of them all is the one left out altogether: the train crash. Calm moments are the most disconcerting. The characters seem pretty dull at first, Willis just seems to stand around looking really confused most of the time. But the awakening to the fact that he is unbreakable, who wouldn't be? Jackson's frail comics collector is strange and esoteric, bordering on crazy. Shyamalan is a talented director and writer, and this movie is good. But I get the feeling that he rushed to make this film, and that the haste has crippled it somewhat. First of all, like I mentioned above, the entire movie felt like the first 30 minutes of something bigger, longer, better. Maybe a part one in a trilogy or something. Second, the nifty little details that were so abundant in "6th Sense" are almost completely forgotten or overlooked here. It's as though Shyamalan decided to shorten the process and cut some character development and some trivia. And the film suffers from it - it is not anywhere near as interesting as "6th Sense".
There's a twist, too, but this one is not very surprising (especially if one has read ANY kind of super-hero comic at some point in life), and seems a bit desperate. But what really sinks the ending are the completely unnecessary explanatory texts that appear, revealing what happened after the story ended for the viewer. I don't understand the need for that kind of self-mockery. It doesn't help the story, it doesn't add anything interesting to the flow of the plot and it certainly feels like a desperate move or some unimaginable sort. I'm not just talking about "Unbreakable" here, I don't understand the need for this in any film (except maybe true stories).
I really don't think that Shyamalan "did it again", since the contrasts between "6th Sense" and "Unbreakable" are very stark, and the quality of the former is far beyond that of the latter. But Shyamalan is clearly a talent to be reckoned with. He just has to top his debut, which will be very, very difficult. A challenge, you might say.