Unbreakable (DVD)

In unbreakable the film he made after his breakthrough smash "The sixth sense" M. Night Shyamalan gives bruce willis another opportunity to show he really can act, in a character driven superhero story that's rooted in and makes reference to it's comic book origins. Willis plays blue collar david dunn-a stadium security worker who right at the start of the film emerges without a scratch from a major train wreck. Then portentous Elijah Price (samuel L Jackson) contacts him and persuades him to see his life and being as something unusual with a pre-destined purpose. To give away too much plot would deprive the first time viewer of the ...  Read the complete review

For a brief spell the name M Night Shyamalan film was a guarantee of quality: a promise that of an atmospheric, slow-burning tale with an unexpected twist at the end. That period didn't last long. Arguably, Shyamalan's second film is also his last decent one. It builds on lessons learned from The Sixth Sense and is probably a more accomplished and confident film. Everything that happens feels natural and the various plot strands seem to segue into each other, without appearing forced. It's pretty well known that most Shyamalan films feature some sort of twist - a tactic he has over-used. Unlike his later efforts, the twist in Unbreakable, whilst surprising, ...  Read the complete review

M Night Shyamalan is a director with an impressive track record. So it was something of a surprise that his, allegedly self-absorbed production, “Lady in the Water” tanked at the box office recently. Maybe the writing’s been on the wall for a while. “The Village” was another flawed foray into the world of the supernatural whilst “Signs” had been a decidedly uneven production mixing the UFO genre into Shyamalan’s distinctively suspenseful melting pot of sci-fi suggestion and borderline, Hitchcockian suspense. Perhaps the Indian director with a penchant for the unusual may never top the 1999 and 2000 movies “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable” respectively and it’s the ...  Read the complete review

Do you ever wonder where comic book writers get their ideas? Okay, most probably conjure them up from their imagination, but maybe some of those heroes and villains with extraordinary powers are actually exaggerations of real-life people. Of course I’m not suggesting there are really people with x-ray vision or the ability to fly, but maybe there are special people out there, who don’t even realise they are special. When David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is the only survivor of a high-speed train derailment, it draws the attention of reclusive comic book collector Elijah Price (an interestingly cast Samuel L. Jackson). Born with a condition that renders his ...  Read the complete review

This movie begins quite strangely with a list of statistics on a plain background, relating to comic books, and then changes to a department store in 1961, where a young woman has just given birth to a child. The arriving doctor is amazed, and asks if anyone had dropped the infant as the new baby has broken arms and legs. When told the child had not been dropped he states that the baby had to have been damaged in the uterus. The child is a victim of the brittle bone disease Osteogenesis Imperfecta. We then see the same child in his teens, with a broken arm, being coaxed out to a park bench to look at a present that his mother has set out there. The gift is a comic ...  Read the complete review