Movie Review: Unbreakable (2000)
Synopsis: Security guard David Dunn is the lone survivor when a passenger train derails. Even more amazing is the fact he escaped without a scratch, baffling investigators. Soon after, Dunn is approached by Elijah Price, an art gallery owner stricken with a disease that makes his bones brittle. Price believes Dunn may have superpowers like those in the comic books. Dunn is unconvinced, until he realizes he has never been injured or sick and is able to bench press an unbelievable amount of weight.
Who's in it? The movie stars Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright, Spencer Treat Clark and Charlayne Woodard.
Review: My wife had never seen Unbreakable and, since she is also interested in watching the sequels (which I haven't seen) we ended up picking it out for our movie night. It had been a long time since I last saw this movie and I couldn't remember much about it as a result. After seeing it again, I thought it was an OK film.
This is a different kind of superhero film. Rather than a lot of action, the movie puts much more emphasis on origin story, suggesting comic book superheroes are based on real-life people who may not realize they have powers. In Dunn's (Willis) case, he was an ordinary security guard and father going through a rough patch in his marriage who didn't even realize he had gone his entire life without catching a cold or breaking a bone until Price (Jackson) asked him about it.
I also like how the movie leaves Price's superhero theory up in the air for the majority of the runtime. While there is evidence supporting that theory, there is also evidence suggesting he is wrong, including the time Dunn almost drowned while in school. Then, when Dunn's son, Joseph (Clark) tries to prove it by shooting Dunn, he is instead talked out of pulling the trigger, leaving things still unproven.
On the negative side of things, the movie does tend to drag on a bit as a result of this and, at times, got a bit repetitive (the weightlifting scene, in particular, seemed to go on longer than needed). In fact, the 106-minute-long film probably could have been trimmed by about 15-20 minutes without having any real impact on the story or, just as good, some of that runtime could have been used to add a bit more to the action scenes when they finally happened.
I also thought the ending was a bit bland. The surprise twist was an interesting one that does a good job setting up the sequels, but the movie just ends after that, choosing to tell the viewer what happened next rather than show it. I would have liked to have seen something, anything, more exciting than reading about it.
Final Opinion: It probably could have used a bit more action but overall, I thought it was an intriguing concept. Now that I've re-watched it, we will probably give the next movies in the series a try.
My Grade: B+
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