Long Story Short: Bruce Willis has a poncho, marital problems, invincibility, super strength, visions of other people’s sins and Samuel L. Jackson by his side to explain what it all means.

Alan Says:
Unbreakable is M. Night Shayamalan’s follow up to the hugely popular The Sixth Sense. Both movies have excellent story lines, supernatural elements and unpredictable endings. Unbreakable was not as critically acclaimed as The Sixth Sense and took in considerably less money at the box office. But in my opinion, Unbreakable is just as good as The Sixth Sense.

The director purposely brings the movie along at a methodical pace, intricately developing the characters and story line. Even if you feel that this movie is slow, you’ve got to at least appreciate how cool it looks. The atmosphere is surreal, almost as if you’re in the fantasy world of superheroes and supervillains. The amount of detail Shyamalan used in creating a comic book reality is astounding.

Bruce Willis is great as a security guard who does not really know where his life is going. He begins to find direction after he is the sole survivor of a train wreck. The movie may be a fantasy, but it deals with true feelings of resentment and inadequacy that people often have in life.

Here is where my opinion may differ from Jeff’s: Unbreakable has a semi-surprising and fitting ending, but don’t expect anything as satisfying as the end of The Sixth Sense.

Jeff Says:

I could write pages on why this is one of the best films of 2000. As Alan explained, many people thought this would be the next Sixth Sense. It was a dark film with supernatural overtones starring.

To the public’s dismay, and some critics’ delight, the film was something entirely different. Not only was it deep, thoughtful filmmaking and story-telling, but it did not have a plot built completely around a deceptive twist. Here, the surprise is rather a trivial bonus than the hinge on which the entire story hangs.

The movie, for the most part, seems to be a development for something bigger (a trilogy has been rumored). Regardless of the actual plot points, the real focus of the film is the two men coming to grips with their realities, gifts and shortcomings.

To develop the story, Shyamalan uses cinematography, color, symbolism and allegorical devices in ways that only The Fast and the Furious has accomplished since (yes, that was sarcasm). These techniques are scarce at best when it comes to big studio pictures these days.

This was a great piece of filmmaking that got lost under its “event movie” marketing. Rent it now!