Movies - Unbreakable

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	Movies - Unbreakable

:This page refers to "Unbreakable" the film. For other uses, see Unbreakable (disambiguation).. Unbreakable is a 2000 movie written, produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson.

Details

As a film, Unbreakable explores the role that myth has in our civilization, and specifically explores the way that humans use comic books to explore mythic dimensions of the real world. The film works on a second level, for within the film itself comic books are in a real sense man's last link to an ancient way of story-telling.

In DVD commentary, Shyamalan claims he was in the process of writing a single movie using a comic-book three-part structure (the superhero's birth, their struggles against general evil-doers, and their ultimate battle against the "arch enemy"). However, he found the "birth" section far more interesting than the remainder and decided to base the entire movie around the idea.

Many have compared this film with The Sixth Sense
because it shares the same writer and director, and star actor, has the same type of plot structure, and reveals a surprise ending. The film was a modest box-office success though critically acclaimed for its original and offbeat spin on the superhero mythos though Shyamalan himself considers the film a lesser effort. However many of the fans feel this film is underrated.

Plot

Elijah Price is born with Type I Osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare disease in which the bones lack collagen of sufficient quality and/or quantity, and thus break very easily. He is even born with broken bones, as shown in the first scene of the movie, and later receives the nickname "Mr. Glass". He lives his life searching for a reason for his own existence. He theorizes that if he is at one end of a curve then perhaps there is somebody else quite opposite to him at the other end, someone with greater than usual strengths.

David Dunn is equally searching for a meaning to his life. He gave up a promising football career to be with the girl he loved, but even after their marriage and the birth of a son he still felt a hole - something was missing. After surviving a train wreck (unharmed and as the only survivor), he is contacted by Price and slowly begins to believe in Price's theory, that Dunn is in fact a modern day "superhero" (although the word is never used through the course of the film). As Dunn begins to understand his purpose in the world, he begins to feel whole again and is able to renew his relationship with his wife and his son.

In the final moments of the film, he discovers that Price has caused several terrible disasters, including the train accident that opens the movie, in order to find someone who would miraculously survive as David did. Price insists to Dunn that he performed these deeds only to find meaning in his life. Price then justifies his actions by comparing his relationship with Dunn to that of an often repeated motif in superhero stories; that the hero and the villain are often similar, even friends at first, and exist to provide a comparison for each other.

Comic book references

As in comic books, the main characters have their identified color schemes:
*David's clothes are green, and he is wearing a dark green hooded rain poncho on his first night out.
*Elijah's clothes are purple (a favorite color of Samuel L Jackson), a prominent color amongst supervillains, especially in the 60's and 70's (cf. Lex Luthor)
*The serial killer's janitor uniform is bright orange.
David and Elijah are shown to be each other's opposite in many ways. Their contrasting skin color, hair and class status are such examples. Their colors - green and purple, respectively - are also placed opposite each other on the color wheel.
As in many comic books, the hero's first and last name is alliterate (cf. Clark Kent, Bruce Banner, Peter Parker, Matt Murdock, Reed Richards)
When Joseph watches the television news report on the train wreck, the station logo (an encircled "4"), vaguely resembles the logo for the Fantastic Four comic books.
The cover art for Elijah's first comic book is similar to that of Wolverine vs. Lobo.
Elijah describes how the artwork of a villain features a slightly enlarged head and eyes. Elijah's head appears slightly larger than normal because of his hairstyle.
The hero has a weakness (in David's case, water) that wouldn't normally affect people, like Superman being affected by Kryptonite.
The superhero and the villain were once friends before they became arch enemies (cf. Superman
and Lex Luthor, Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Doom, Spider-Man and Harry Osborn, Professor X and Magneto)
A Superhero uses "basic english" in speaking, Supervillain uses "learned english" in speaking.

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