Genre Grandeur – Unbreakable (2000) – Encore Review 2 – MovieRob

For this month’s next review for Genre Grandeur – Realistic Films, here’s a review of Unbreakable (2000) by me.

Thanks again to Prime Six for choosing this month’s interesting and unique genre.

Next month’s Genre has been chosen by Diego of Lazy Sunday Movies. We will be reviewing our favorite Psychological thrillers.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Oct by sending them to psychodiego@movierob.net  Try to think out of the box! Great choice Diego!

Let’s see what I thought of this movie:

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When Prime Six first suggested this genre, I was quite excited because it’s such an amazingly unique choice and it’s even more subjective than most other genres.  Most genre’s deal with something that personifies the story of the film itself, but this one solely has to do with how each and every person perceives a particular film. I decided to choose 5 movies that I believe are extremely realistic and each one falls into a completely different “normal” genre.  My second choice is from the genre of superhero movies…

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“You could have been a tax accountant. You could have owned your own gym. You could have opened a chain of restaurants. You could’ve done of ten thousand things, but in the end, you chose to protect people. *You* made that decision, and I find that very, very interesting. ” – Elijah

Number of Times Seen – At least 10 times (28 Dec 2000 in the Theater, DVD, 15 Jun 2013, 29 Jun 2014 and 25 Sep 2016)

Link to original review – Here and Here

Brief Synopsis – A security guard miraculously survives a fatal train crash and is approached by a comic book art dealer who believes he may have superpowers.

My Take on it – When OPrime Six suggested this genre, he clearly stated that this genre would rule out any kind of superhero movie.

I beg to differ…

This is actually my favorite superhero movie because it is so realistic that it could conceivably happen within the world we live in.

M. Night Shyamalan wrote and shot this film as a realistic comic book movie and it works so well.

We get to see here how it would be possible for someone in our world to have superpowers and it doesn’t need to rely on anything supernatural which makes it even more believable because it isn’t done from a sci-fi perspective.

Of all of M. Night’s films, this is by far my favorite because it conforms so much to a comic book superhero movie but stays grounded when it comes to the science behind it all.

The shots are framed like comic book pages, the characters each have subtle color schemes, the names are comic bookish, but again it all can conceivably happen right next door to one of us and that is what makes this film so appealing to me.

Brice Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are amazing together in this film and it is clearly my favorite collaboration (so far) between the two of them.

I love the way that the story is built like pieces to a puzzle that when things begin to click together, we can start to see the whole picture as it appears before our eyes.

This is such an amazing concept that could have been expanded on and I am quite curious where it would have gone because it works so perfectly.

Bottom Line – Great realistic portrayal of how it could be possible for someone to actually have real superpowers in the world we live in.  My favorite of M. Night’s films because it feels so real.  The filming is done in such a way that it really mirrors the way comic books are drawn and the color schemes are connected to the characters so perfectly.  Willis and Jackson are amazing together and this is my favorite of their collaborations (to date).  The buildup is done so subtlely and when things finally click together you can see the whole picture like it’s a puzzle being built before our eyes. Would love to have seen where this concept could go because it’s done so perfectly. Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia –  One of director Quentin Tarantino’s favorite films. (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (no change from original review)

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