**Once again
this will be an all SPOILER Flashback**
I will start off by stating that M.
Night Shayamalan’s “Unbreakable” is one of the best on-screen superhero origin
stories ever made. It is better than the
hero/villain origins done for the big-screen versions of Mr. Fantastic/Dr.
Doom, Daredevil/The Kingpin, and Superman/Lex Luthor. But it only works after you see it at least
once, after the formerly ‘Twilight Zone’ now dubbed, at least for the last
decade as the ‘Shayamalan’ twist-ending.
The first viewing comes off as “The Sixth Sense” lite, more silent
moments, more brooding, more character’s giving a cold hard stare. Granted this is not the same genre, less
horror and more drama, drawn-out as it may be.
Everything
about it upon second and in my case 10th viewing screams superhero
story. Not just the villainess name
drops of Mr. Glass and the overtly obvious comic book references. Upon further viewing you can catch the way
some shots are framed by cinematographer Eduardo Serra with characters
motionless as if drawn in a comic book panel, Bruce Willis’s character name is
David Dunn. D.D. a call back to the
early Stan Lee days at Marvel where heroes first and last names started with
the same letter: Reed Richards, Peter Parker, Matt Murdock, Susan Storm, Steven
Strange, Bruce Banner and so on. There
is also the rain poncho as the hero’s costume, and Sam Jackson’s character
Elijah Price purple outfits, and freaky Frederick Douglass hair-do.
Even more
subtle are moments like the beginning when David can’t even lie convincingly to
the young sports agent on the train.
Most of the time when he does lie in the movie it’s unconvincing,
because as we all know Lois. Superman
never lies.
This is the
Bruce Willis I enjoy watching, when he is actually delivering a
performance. It seems that he responds
better to a role when the director is also the writer, as in “Pulp Fiction”, “The
Fifth Element”, and “Looper”. Other
times he just phones it in, like in “The Expendables”, “Cop Out”, and the last
couple of ‘Die Hard’ movies. With the
character of David Dunn he plays it subdued, and very sad, which lends to the argument
that Mr. Glass makes that he’s not doing what he’s supposed to be doing. Sam Jackson as Elijah Price (Mr. Glass) plays
like a total villain of Dr. Doom proportion, One: he’s rude an condescending to
almost everyone he encounters from the comic book clerk to his own customers of
his art gallery. Two: he is calm and
convincing to those that further his belief, specifically David and his wife
Audrey played by Robin Wright who also turns in a great performance. Her best moment being a quiet doorway scene
with Wills when she asks about his faithfulness.
Again
another comic book trope is that our villain either doesn’t see himself as the
bad guy or only sees that he’s doing what must be done, as it is the order of
things. Price actually believes that it
was destiny for him to find the ‘Unbreakable’ man who resided at the opposite
end of the spectrum as him with his osteogenesis imperfecta disorder. Much in the way The Joker and his chaos must be
opposition to the Batman’s order. Professor
X believes in co-existence with the human race while Magneto intends to rule them,
both feel that what they are doing is the right thing or at least that is what
they are compelled to do. The originality and world building o f the films is also worth noting. Setting the movie in the real world with a superpower that was just exaggerated by years od comic book stories. Instead of x-ray vision and flight, it's tremendous instinct and a super-dense bone structure.
The other
thing that makes “Unbreakable” worth repeat viewings is it has a firm place in
the genre, before it crawled its way out of the sub-genre. “Comic book movies” were overly saturated in
the 80 and 90’s with multiple bad versions of Superman, Batman, Ninja Turtles
sequels and just plain bad takes on characters like Spawn, Captain America, and
The Phantom. There were a few worthy
entries such as “The Rocketeer” and “The Crow” leading up to the beginning of
the renaissance of comic book movies in 1998’s “Blade” and 2000’s “X-Men”. Though it wasn’t until the first decade of the
2000’s that they started to come into their own with classics like The Hellboy
films, the Nolan Batman’s, Rami’s first two Spider-man’s, and of course the
birth of the Marvel age on film, the perfection that was 2008’s “Iron Man”.
And had “Unbreakable” been more successful there would have been the two planned sequels. As is the only way to do it nowadays,
Shayamalan had said in interviews that two more “Unbreakable” movies were
planned where the next would have had David getting into his role as a
superhero, taking down thugs and being tested by more ruthless criminals all
the while leading to the epic third film where David would face off against his
nemesis Mr. Glass. That’s a trilogy I
wouldn’t mind seeing, especially now since Shayamalan’s filmography reads like
failure, after failure, after failure “After Earth”. Mean joke, I know, but it was done more out
of disappointment that anything else. I
guess the best way to look at it as I do with Star Wars. The prequels didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the
originals, it just made me appreciate them more. And hey it’s not over yet for Star Wars,
there may be something fantastic on the horizon, I have not given up hope on
Mr. Shayamalan yet.
Now with
just as many hits as there are misses, and with a little comic book movie
called “The Avengers” making a billion dollars, the genre is here to stay. So now may be a good time to look back to when it wasn’t this kind of film that every studio wanted to make. When a younger more visionary M. Night brought
a story to the screen that gave us a glimpse into a very interesting world that
is worth re-visiting.
--Robert L. Castillo
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