A comic book gallery owner discovers that the lone survivor of a horrible accident has an amazing ability.
It is only befitting to review this one at this point in time. You know which one is going to be next! Now that Glass (2019) has been heavily promoted as the third part of an otherwise stealthy trilogy, Unbreakable has been given a lot more gravitas.
When it was first released in 2000, some people loved it, some laughed at it, and some were just left scratching their heads. I will avoid major spoilers about the ending just in case someone hasn’t watched it yet. As a standalone, there was really no closure. When it comes to ‘Mr. Glass’ justice was served. But what about David Dunn? He finally found his calling, and then what? Was that the end of the hero’s journey? To discover an ability and do nothing with it afterwards?
As part of a trilogy, the scope changes. It makes you now want to go back and watch it again, get to know the characters once more, and see how they can potentially be connected to the 24 personalities of Kevin Crumb in Split (2018) before you go to the cinema and watch Glass (2019). Remember the scene at the football stadium when David Dunn heads for the drug dealer? What if you suspected that the mother and child he brushes past and senses child abuse just before is believed to be little Kevin with his mom? Hmm…
Anyway, Unbreakable is arguably M.Night Shyamalan’s most innovative and resourceful directing, Eduardo Serra’s darkest cinematography, and one of the best James Newton Howard’s score. It marks the fourth collaboration between Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson, both irreplaceable. Memorable moments:
- The hooded rain poncho and Dunn’s obscured face.
- Long tracking shots and high and low camera angles create the illusion we are in a graphic novel.
- Repeatedly seeing Mr Glass through or around the glass reminds us of his connection with it but also his weakness.
- Respectively, the raincoat David Dunn wears in most scenes to “protect” himself from the rain (water).
- The graphic novel’s colour patterns; Dunn wears green and Glass purple.
- Speaking of, the saturated colours over the muted colours at the station.
Unbreakable is not a superhero film but follows the hero’s self-discovery path. And even though it is not a graphic novel adaptation, it is most definitely made that way to “beam us up” to the narrative storytelling of the world of pictures.
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