Movie Reviews

Unbreakable

The premise of this movie was interesting. David Dunn (Bruce Willis), the sole survivor of a horrific train wreck, is met by Samuel Price (Samuel Jackson), who has been looking for an "unharmed sole survivor" his entire life. Elijah makes David question many things about his life. How did he survive? Why did he survive? Had he ever been sick or injured ever in his life? What kind of person was David to have survived? What did it mean?

After seeing the film all I can ask is "What did it mean?" "Will this film survive?" If so - "How? Why?"

My expectations were high as a fan of the Sixth Sense. Unfortunately - Unbreakable is not the Sixth Sense. Although Jackson is great, I wasn't sure if Willis just wasn't into his role - or if he meant to play the main character with as little personality and emotion as possible. If that was the case - great job. The movie itself just doesn't seem to move along. The camera work and pacing of the film were so slow, you were aware of it's 2 hour length. Perhaps even surprised that it was that short.

(****** Warning: Some of the story will be given away in this next paragraph. If you haven't yet seen the movie, and want to remain clueless - please skip to the next row of *****.

The first major disappointment came with the train wreck. Or shall I say the lack thereof. No cool action shots. Which I'm assuming would have been a logistical and stunt nightmare to have performed. But I was expecting to see something - and by the disappointed sighs in the audience around me, I wasn't alone. No screeching tires or the whine of crunching metal. They don't even show decent shots of the wreck afterwards. We're given a brief glimpse of it during a news story on a TV screen.

From there, the story and film failed to build up the suspense or interest for the story. We know they're trying to get to a critical point of the story - most films do. But Unbreakable seems to mosey along with details that appeared to lose their impact with their timing in the film. I never fully grasped Elijah's hokey "comic book hero" theory. I have no clue why it was so important for David's son to have his dad be a "super hero". Why was David’s wife so against football - her reasoning seemed flimsy. Did Daivid really sacrifice much by giving up football? Why even have all the football stuff  in the movie? It seemed half done.

Although I finally understood Elijah's interest in David at the "twist" at the end, I didn't understand David's interest in Elijah after initially putting him off. Did David ever question his "quirks" before the train wreck? At times it seemed he had - at other times - no.

Oh, and the scene in the commercials where he cuts himself? Not in the film at all. I'm getting a little tired of scenes in previews and commercials that aren't even in the film. But I'm getting sidetracked.

*******(safe to resume reading)
I can't recommend spending the two hours to see this film, I'm disappointed to say. Although I enjoyed the last 5 minutes - it wasn't worth sitting through the rest of the film to get there.

~Trixie

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