After that rather ominous title, I should clarify that I did not think Unbreakable was a bad movie. Strange,
certainly, but I can deal with that. No, it's just that Shymalan's
second blockbuster paled in comparison to the utterly mesmerizing The Sixth Sense.
Bruce Willis once again stars, this time as security guard David Dunn,
who is a decent guy but certainly not as likable as the soft-hearted
psychologist Malcolm Crowe. He, too, suffers from marital problems, but
they do not arise from over-dedication to his job, though absence does
play into it. In his first scene we watch him slyly slip his wedding
ring into his pocket in order to flirt with the foxy lady sitting next
to him on the train.
Moments later, the trains crashes, and
David walks away unscathed, the only passenger to survive the wreck.
This miraculous event catches the eye of Elijah Price (Samuel L.
Jackson), a comic book fanatic with brittle bone disease. He believes
that Dunn may be a super-hero, and he summons the security guard to his
store to discuss his theory. Unfortunately, Dunn's impressionable son
(Spencer Treat Clark), who worships his father, believes Elijah's theory
and becomes determined to prove it.
Meanwhile, Dunn's wife, a nearly unrecognizable Robin Wright Penn (she looks so much...older than she did in Princess Bride and Forrest Gump),
is finding it increasingly hard to talk to her husband and becomes very
worried when Elijah's super-hero talk starts rubbing off on her son. As
in The Sixth Sense, it's the kid that finally gets Bruce's
character to see himself as he really is, but I'm afraid that Clark was a
little too grating for me. He came off as rather pathetic and whiny,
although much of that probably had to do with the dialogue he was given.
The most memorably bad scene in this movie, in my mind,
occurs at the kitchen table, when David's son informs him that he has a
gun and that he intends to shoot him to prove that he is invincible.
What follows is supposed to be tense and suspenseful but comes out
rather comical as the parents plead for the weapon. "We don't shoot
friends," Mom admonishes, to which he protests, "I'll only shoot him
once!"
Still, the movie has a rather intriguing premise, and
it's fun to watch Dunn uncover the layers of his past in order to accept
his present. The movie almost ends on a feel-good note with father and
son sharing their incredible secret, but Shymalan is apparently a big
fan of the twist ending. This one is sure to surprise, but while the end
of The Sixth Sense left me with a peaceful, fulfilled sort of feeling, this ending was disappointing and unsettling.
As with The Sixth Sense,
I think a Horror classification is inappropriate. There's nothing too
scary here, and there are only a couple violent scenes. Perhaps if The Sixth Sense
had not blown me away like it did, I would not have set the same
expectations for this movie. I doubted I would like it as much,
especially with the absence of Osment, but I was intrigued to see what
Shymalan would come up with next. It was a decent movie, a good movie
even, but not a great movie, and while I don't regret seeing it in the
theater, I wouldn't spend another $5 to see it again.
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