Unbreakable

UK Release Date. 29 December 2000
Certification. 12
Running Time. 1 hour 46 mins
Director. M. Night Shyamalan
Cast. Spencer Treat Clark, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Robin Wright.
Rating. 62%

Review.

"The average comic collector owns 3,312 comics and will spend approximately one year of his or her life reading them."

Years before Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins and Jon Favreau's Iron Man, M. Night Shyamalan unveiled a superhero origin story as a follow-up to his breakout film, The Sixth Sense. Unbreakable was, to all intents and purposes, a superhero origin story before the cinema-going public knew what an origin story was.

We're introduced to security guard David Dunn (Bruce Willis), a character who it would appear feels a sense of unfathomable melancholy that borders on deep, directionless depression. His life apparently lacks purpose. However, when Dunn is the sole survivor of a major train wreck - emerging without a single scratch or broken bone - his life changes forever. For one, he is introduced to Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a comic book collector with a rare and debilitating condition - extremely brittle bones. Elijah is convinced that luck had nothing to do with Dunn’s miraculous escape. Why was he spared (when the other 130 passengers weren't)? Could he be some kind of post-modern superhero? Elijah thinks so. And no one wants to believe that more than Dunn's 12-year-old son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark). As the film develops, Dunn slowly contemplates that his very nature might be extraordinary.

It’s a daring story, drenched in mystery, and in true (early) M. Night Shyamalan style, the mood is sombre and seriously cinematic. Taking all the promise of The Sixth Sense and running with it, Unbreakable has only grown in stature as superhero cinema exploded in its wake. But while Unbreakable is cut from the same cloth as Shyamalan’s Academy Award-nominated predecessor, it’s not as ominously creepy or theologically unsettling. The film's most serious failing is its pace. Numb and tired. 

Dunn’s transcendental gift turns out to be remarkably similar to the one central to David Cronenberg’s darker and more tragic The Dead Zone, but Shyamalan outdoes Stephen King (the author of The Dead Zone) by displaying a level of noble optimism. Instead of destroying his afflicted hero, Shyamalan liberates him. The intriguingly original premise - that comic book superheroes may not be gross exaggerations as much as historical hints at superhuman potential - taps into our inner desire - to escape mediocrity and aspire to a higher calling.