Revisiting M Night Shyamalan Unbreakable before Glass enters the scene

Today, it is difficult to imagine a comic book superhero movie without exorbitant budget, its casual tone and action sequences directed by computer graphics and special effects in the third act in which the major part of the film budget is used. M Night Shyamalan Unbreakable was released in 2000, well before the modern era of cinematic universes. The latest film from the Eastrail 177 trilogy, Glbad, will be released in Indian theaters this Friday. Let's review the original movie before that.

Unbreakable, released even before the Christopher Nolan era of Batman movies, which forced movie critics to take superheroes seriously. Unbreakable, criminally neglected, was a serious and dark superhero movie years before the Dark Knight trilogy was even designed.

Unbreakable was not based on specific characters from Marvel or DC Comics, although it contains references and some Easter eggs (for example, the 'Active Comics' logo was written in the style of the series' Action Comics' from DC).

Elijah Price, of Samuel L. Jackson, presents a problem known as osteogenesis imperfecta type I, because of which his bones are extremely fragile and easily fractured. He has been a comic book reader all his life and wonders if there is a person at the other end of the spectrum who is opposed to her and whose bones are indestructible. A superhero to his supervillain.

There is indeed. Bruce Willis's character, David Dunn, is a man of all time except him. As Elijah thought, he is invincible. He is troubled by the dissolution of his marriage. He is involved in a train accident in which he is the only survivor. In fact, it is completely unscathed from a disaster that has cost the lives of all pbadengers.

Elijah, who was the secret orchestrator of the "accident", informs him of his superpowers. Dunn does not believe him and recounts a childhood incident in which he almost drowned. Elijah regards water as his only weakness, his kryptonite, so to speak.

Later, towards the end, Elijah reveals to Dunn that he was responsible for the train accident, apart from other apparent "accidents", because (being a maniac), he wanted to find his antithesis and waited for this survivor – to Dunn.

The experience of watching Unbreakable is not surprisingly far from that of modern comics. The budget is small and it shows honestly. There are no hallucinating special effects, but the distinctive visual imprint of Shyamalan is present.

Unbreakable is always fun, although it's much more than that – like a typical Shyamalan movie. There are twists and turns, although slow, is quite interesting. It's a quiet meditation on the concept of being a superhero and a supervillain. You can almost feel the pressure of being Unbreakable on the shoulders of Bruce Willis. Samuel L Jackson is incredibly good, a criminal brain, a Joker-like character who compensates for his physical limitations by his diabolical intelligence.