Movie Review: Unbreakable

Unbreakable (2000) 

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Written by M. Night Shyamalan 

Starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright

Release Date November 22nd, 2000

Published November 20th, 2020 

Unbreakable was M Night Shyamalan’s last moment as a seemingly unimpeachable genius of pop cinema. After this came Signs which received strong box office but the first real critical grumbles since his little seen debut feature, Wide Awake. Don’t misunderstand, Unbreakable had its critics, but with Shyamalan still in the glow of his multiple Academy Award nominations for The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable was always going to benefit from that film's coattails. 

That Unbreakable wasn’t Shyamalan falling on his face but instead delivering a second straight crowd-pleasing blockbuster is no minor feat. Many directors have shown themselves to be one and done it-person directors in the past. To have back to back blockbuster critical darlings is far more rare than we imagine.

Unbreakable stars Bruce Willis as David, a seemingly ordinary guy with ordinary guy troubles. David’s marriage is failing, his relationship with his son is strained and his search for stable, well paying work has been hampered by his seeming depression. Then, David is seemingly nearly killed in a massive train accident. In fact, by some miracle, he’s the only survivor among more than 100 passengers and crew members.

David’s luck doesn’t go unnoticed. A comic book aficionado by the name of Elijah Price hears of David’s improbable survival and begins to seek him out. For years, Elijah has searched for someone like David on the bizarre belief that the man he is seeking is his direct opposite and thus his super-powered nemeses. Elijah himself, is nearly paralyzed by a brittle bone condition that causes his bones to shatter under pressure.

Elijah believes that David’s bones are unbreakable, making him his super-heroic doppelganger. Where David is unbreakable, Elijah is completely breakable and thus fashions himself as a mastermind type who uses his wits to orchestrate evil that David must work to prevent or avenge. David doesn’t buy Elijah’s superhero nonsense but as he begins to notice things about his body, how he’s never broken a bone, how he doesn’t experience physical fatigue, how he doesn’t get sick, he starts to think that maybe, just maybe the crazy comic book man might be onto something.

One of the clever aspects of Unbreakable is Bruce Willis’s refusal to buy into David as a superhero. Despite evidence in his very bones, Willis' David stubbornly holds on to his non-believer status. Even as Elijah begins to push him to test his limits and find his weaknesses. David eventually determines that he has ESP, Extra-Sensory Perception. When David touches someone he can sense the crime they committed.

David uses this ability to locate a janitor who had ambushed and murdered a local family man and has taken the man’s wife and children hostage. David rescues the kids and winds up in a pitched battle with the murderer. The journey of the film appears to be Elijah pushing David to become a superhero but, with this being from the mind of M Night Shyamalan, there is a twist to the ending that throws a new light on these characters.

What Shyamalan does so incredibly in Unbreakable is establish mood and tone. The mood is melancholy but with a growing sense of color and light as David slowly uncovers his abilities. The tone of the film is a slow burn of sadness and resignation to ordinary life that builds and builds with excitement through the second act before reaching a pair of jarring crescendos including that terrific twist ending that I mentioned.

Of course, if you are seeing Glass this weekend and you have seen the trailer, you know what the twist is. Still, no need for me to spoil it here. Just a warning though, you do need to see Unbreakable in order for you to understand the action of Glass and the importance of Samuel L Jackson’s character to Bruce Willis’ character. How they are tied in with James McAvoy’s murderous, multiple personalities from Split is the big question that Glass will have to answer.  

As for Unbreakable on its own, I cannot recommend it enough. In some ways, I actually prefer Unbreakable to The Sixth Sense. That’s not a popular position as The Sixth Sense, in many ways, has more dramatic credibility than the comic book quality of Unbreakable. I simply find the conceit of Unbreakable even more irresistibly mainstream and entertaining than even the ‘I see dead people’ conceit of The Sixth Sense.

Both are artfully made, mainstream blockbusters, based in familiar genres, but there is something rather bold and unique in Unbreakable where Shyamalan forces you to treat comic books as a form of serious film art. That takes guts today, let alone in the year 2000, before Marvel made comic book movies that critics could embrace. 

Essay The Box Office Myth - 2010

In 2010 I read an interview with writer-director M. Night Shyamalan. In the interview, the master of the twist attempted to twist logic. In response to questions about the quality of his then recent film, The Last Airbender, Shyamalan pointed to the box office returns for the film symbolic of how good the movie was. Essentially, because people bought tickets, they automatically liked the movie. I wrote this in response... 

It's time to correct a growing myth in the world of the movie box office. The myth is thus: success at the box office means the movie is good. The latest to pass off this ludicrous myth is a terrific film critic and reporter Steven Rea who recently interviewed director M. Night Shyamalan.

Shyamalan may in fact be the true progenitor of this particular myth. His films have repeatedly been 

trashed by critics and yet, as the article states, only his “Lady in the Water” can be considered a true box office failure. This propels Mr. Rea and Mr. Shyamalan toward the myth of box office equals quality film.

They are talking about Shyamalan's “The Last Airbender” which through this weekend has taken in more than 125 million dollars. Mr. Shyamalan uses this fact as a bludgeon against critics who have left his movie with an 8% positive rating on the review aggregator website Rottentomatoes (the relevance of Rotten Tomatoes is another debate for another time).

You see, by Mr. Shyamalan's logic, parroted by Mr. Rea, the relative box office success of “The Last Airbender” and each of Mr. Shyamalan's reviled epics “The Village” and the more modest financially successful “The Happening,” state clearly that critics are wrong about the quality of his films. The Audience loves them is what they extrapolate from the box office numbers.

Shyamalan and his defenders take the myth a step further stating that the reason critics don't like 

Shyamalan is somehow personal. They resent his success and especially his ability to draw an audience over their repeated objections to his films. The fans keep coming back so clearly the movies are good.

This notion repeated often enough I am sure offers some comfort to Mr. Shyamalan but let's take the air out of this once and for all. Seeing a movie does not automatically mean liking a movie. Millions of Americans are headed to the theaters this weekend and millions will walk out having paid to see a movie that they did not enjoy.

In the age of the front loaded box office this myth can hide ever so easily behind massive opening weekend box office before word of mouth gets out and ruins everything. That is what happened with “The Last Airbender” which has already dropped out of the box office top 10. After raking in nearly 60 million dollars in its first 4 days ‘Airbender’ has limped to 125 million dollars thru this weekend.

By comparison, “Despicable Me,” a film that has received mostly positive reviews from critics, made 56 million dollars on its opening weekend and has done so in less time in theaters than “The Last Airbender.” “Despicable Me” has already gone over the 200 million dollar mark at the box office and will likely pass 250 to 260 million dollars before it's done.

Box office doesn't translate to film quality. Just seeing a movie doesn't mean people liked it. Many have seen “The Last Airbender” and many of them walked out disappointed. They told their friends who told their friends and many of those people decided not to see it.

Mr. Shyamalan says it’s personal between the critics and him. Critics have it out for him. Why? He’s too successful and he succeeds despite the critics. Success can be defined any number of ways Mr. Shyamalan. Studios I’m sure will agree that your films are successful. The return on investment is the bottom line.

But box office is box office and film quality is film quality. “The Last Airbender” is a terrible film in my opinion and in the opinions of many other critics and even among many of the people who turned it into a successful business enterprise. Crow if you like about the film’s box office success Mr. Shyamalan but you disappointed many who saw your film, not just the critics.

Many Americans paid hard earned dollars to take their kids to see “The Last Airbender” and many walked out feeling cheated that they had spent so much to see a movie they didn’t enjoy. Shyamalan points to their dollars and calls himself successful. That’s a fail on this end Mr. Shyamalan, no matter what the balance sheets say.

Movie Review Split

Split (2017)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Written by M. Night Shyamalan 

Starring James McAvoy, Anya Taylor Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, Betty Buckley

Release Date January 20th, 2017

Published January 19th, 2017

Despite positive notice for 2015’s The Visit, the belief was that before Split, M Night Shyamalan was done as a big time director. Split changes all of that and puts the former twist-meister back on the A-list. Split was a stunner, a film that quickened the pace of the usual Shyamalan piece while maintaining the kind of suspense and tension that made Shyamalan the supposed modern day Hitchcock.

Split stars James McAvoy stars in Split as Kevin, a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder. It’s hard to know which of Kevin’s numerous personalities is going to show up. Kevin’s psychiatrist, Dr Fletcher (Betty Buckley), has grown used to talking with Barry, Kevin’s effeminately homosexual personality, who acts as a spokesperson for what he has come to call ‘The Horde,’ a nickname for the 23 known personalities, part of Kevin’s Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Lately however, Barry doesn’t seem like Barry and Dr Fletcher begins to recognize Dennis, arguably the most dangerous of Kevin’s personalities. Barry has been emailing Dr Fletcher at night with concerns about Dennis and The Horde and then downplaying his late night emails when he talks to her during sessions. The dynamic chemistry between McAvoy and the veteran Betty Buckley is fantastic and makes the mind games between the two are exciting and riveting.

Indeed, Dennis does prove to be dangerous. With the encouragement of Patricia, another of Kevin’s Horde, Dennis has taken hostages. In a mall parking lot Dennis murdered a man and took his daughter and two of her friends as hostages. Dennis and Patricia plan to sacrifice the teens to a creature they call The Beast, a heretofore unknown 24th persona for Kevin. The Beast is indeed a terror as Kevin’s very body chemistry changes to match his personality and as The Beast you can imagine the horrors to come.

The precision of James McAvoy’s performance cannot be understated. This is one of the most remarkable acting jobs I have ever witnessed. Sure, most actors put on and take off many different personas during their career but rarely are they asked to create distinct characters inside of one movie. McAvoy sells each personality as if they are the lead in their own movie and each persona is distinct and provides another layer to the thriller.

Perhaps the most important of these personas is Hedwig, a nine year old boy. Hedwig has the heavy lifting of getting us through the second act and into the third. It is as Hedwig that McAvoy spends time interacting with Anya Taylor Joy, Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula as the kidnapped teenagers. Hedwig has a load of exposition to unfurl in this time as the movie lays the groundwork for the reveal of The Beast and he is a fantastic vessel for this. We’re never bored by the exposition because we are transfixed by McAvoy’s take on a 9 year old in an adult body.

Anya Taylor Joy, one of the stars of the equally ingenious The Witch before taking on this role, is a brilliant foil for Kevin aka The Horde. No innocent herself, Joy’s Casey has flashbacks amidst the kidnapping plot and the payoff to these flashbacks is every bit as shocking as the final reveal of The Beast. The empathy she offers to Kevin’s varying personalities is a terrific counterpoint to the menace of Dennis, Patricia and The Beast.

Split is one of my favorite movies of this young century and that it was folded into the universe of Unbreakable is a tasty cherry on top of an already great dessert of a movie. The final reveal of Bruce Willis in Split was a jaw-dropper for those of us who saw it opening weekend and then rushed home to spoil it on the internet with our speculation on how a sequel to Unbreakable featuring Kevin would play out.

It was as if we were part of the market testing of an Unbreakable and we didn’t even know it. The choice felt organic at the end, after we’ve seen Kevin become the almost supernatural figure, The Beast and considered how one might oppose such a figure. Seeing Bruce Willis was amazing in that moment and the catharsis of feeling the pieces of Glass fall into place was a terrific Adrenalin rush following what was already a great thrill in Split.

Movie Review Glass

Glass (2019) 

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan 

Written by M. Night Shyamalan 

Starring Bruce Willis, James McAvoy, Samuel L. Jackson, Anya Taylor Joy, Sarah Paulson 

Release Date January 18th, 2019 

Published January 17th, 2019 

As the biggest fan on the planet of M Night Shyamalan’s Split, I had a bias in favor of Glass. I was deeply excited for this sequel to two movies that I absolutely adored in Unbreakable and Split. So, for me to say that Glass is a bizarre, cheap, sloppy mess of a movie is really saying something. I tried to like this movie, I attempted to will Glass into being a good movie. I tried to rationalize it into working as a narrative. Nothing I tried worked as my logical brain overwhelmed my fanboy instinct, forcing this admission: Glass is terrible.

Glass picks up the story of Unbreakable and Split in the wake of the revelation that the two are in the same universe. David Dunn (Bruce Willis) has been fighting evil since the day he sent Elijah Price, aka Mr. Glass (Samuel L Jackson) to prison for his terrorist acts. Using his super strength and extra-sensory perception, David has turned his attention to The Horde, the name given to the multiple personalities of Kevin (James McAvoy).

The Beast, Kevin’s most violent and dangerous alter-ego, has been feeding on those who he believes have never felt real pain. He’s murdered several more teenagers in the time since we met him in Split but finally, David Dunn, known in the media as ‘The Overseer,’ for reasons never determined, has a lead on The Horde. David has tracked Kevin's location with the help of his son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), to an empty factory in Philadelphia.

The confrontation between David and The Beast is cut short by the arrival of police and a doctor, Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson). How did the police find them? Your guess is as good as the movie’s guess, as the movie offers no notion of how the police got there. How they got there with the one doctor in the world who has created a machine that can stop the superhuman qualities of Kevin and David, even though they had no idea where or who they were, is one of many contrivances of the idiot plot of Glass.

David and Kevin are taken to a psychiatric hospital where, waiting for them, unwittingly, is Mr. Glass. It seems that Dr. Staple has a very particular specialty: people who believe they are superheroes. She believes that the three men are delusional and sets out to prove to them their seemingly superhuman abilities can be explained through science. Naturally, Elijah Price, the ultimate ‘True Believer’ won’t be easily convinced.

The trailer for Glass spoils the fact that Mr. Glass and The Horde/Kevin become a team and that David and The Beast will go head to head in the yard of the hospital. One thing the trailer doesn’t tell you is how cheap and unfocused these scenes are. The final act of Glass is reminiscent of Shyamalan’s The Village, a film where the final act completely destroys what was not a bad movie until that point. Glass is bad throughout but the final fight does manage to make things worse. 

Glass isn’t that bad headed to the third act, it's relatively watchable, and then things go completely off the rails. In his attempt to recapture past glory as the king of the ‘Twist,’ director M. Night Shyamalan packs a ludicrous number of twists into the third act of Glass. There are so many twists at the end of Glass that it becomes downright exhausting. It’s as if Shyamalan was so desperate to fool us that he hedged his bets and put in as much craziness as he could think of in order to convince us that at least one of these twists would legitimately surprise us.

I mentioned that Glass was cheap and boy howdy, for a movie that is a sequel to a pair of blockbusters, this movie looks as if it were a Sweded version of a sequel to two blockbusters. Glass has one location for the most part and while it promises a big showdown at a high profile location, that location is revealed as CGI that somehow looks like a below average matte painting. The biggest twist in Glass is how M. Night Shyamalan turned a blockbuster movie into a cheap, forgettable failure. 

The number of corners cut in the making of Glass are rather shocking. The makeup used in many scenes is below average for even a modestly budgeted movie and the costumes are shockingly low rent. The production is stunningly mediocre and reflects the fact that Shyamalan no longer carries favor of a major studio, or studio budget. The former blockbuster director is now in the strictly low rent district, working with indie outlet Blumhouse, home of cheap, shlocky horror movies. 

No one was more excited for Glass than I was. I was endlessly excited for this movie. I ignored how the trailer appeared to reveal important plot points. I ignored the cheesy lines made just for the trailer. I was completely blind to these flaws out of fealty to my love for Split and Unbreakable. Glass was going to have to fail so remarkably for me to dislike it. The failure of Glass would have to be undeniable and complete and it truly is. Glass is undeniably terrible.