4) Unbreakable
Today it’s hard to remember a time when M. Night Shyamalan was a reputable name in Hollywood and a director who cranked out original, interesting, and well made projects. He gets a lot of credit for directing The Sixth Sense, but Unbreakable may very well be his best film.
Like Megamind, Unbreakable succeeds in taking classic superhero stories and the dichotomy of a hero and his arch-nemesis and gives it a new spin. The film tells the tale of a Philadelphia security guard named David Dunn (Bruce Willis), who slowly discovers that he possesses super-human abilities. He’s helped along by a stranger named Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), who was born with Type 1 osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare disease that causes his bones to break incredibly easily.
Shyamalan meant for the film to serve as a parallel to the three-part structure of the traditional superhero origin story. Rather than portraying a regular man’s rise to becoming a superhero, the film takes its time and examines how Dunn’s discovery of his abilities effects both him and his dysfunctional family. By the end it may be a bit frustrating, as Unbreakable feels like it really lacks a third act, but you have to give Shyamalan some credit for thinking outside the box and trying something new with a concept like this.
Published: Sep 10, 2014 10:15 pm