Unbreakable (2000)
Average Rating: 6.3/10
Reviews Counted: 160
Fresh: 109 | Rotten: 51
With a weaker ending, Unbreakable is not as a good as The Sixth Sense. However, it is a quietly suspenseful film that intrigues and engages, taking the audience through unpredictable twists and turns along the way.
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Critic Reviews: 36
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 16
With a weaker ending, Unbreakable is not as a good as The Sixth Sense. However, it is a quietly suspenseful film that intrigues and engages, taking the audience through unpredictable twists and turns along the way.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 260,690
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Movie Info
Actor Bruce Willis and writer/director M. Night Shyamalan reunite after the surprise success of The Sixth Sense for this supernatural thriller. David Dunne (Willis) is taking a train from New York City back home to Philadelphia after a job interview that didn't go well when his car jumps the tracks and collides with an oncoming engine, with David the only survivor among the 131 passengers on board. Astoundingly, David is not only alive, he hardly seems to have been touched. As David wonders what
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Cast
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Bruce Willis
David Dunne -
Samuel L. Jackson
Elijah Prince -
Robin Wright
Audrey Dunne -
Charlayne Woodard
Elijah's Mother -
Spencer Treat Clark
Joseph Dunn -
James Handy
Priest -
Eamonn Walker
Dr. Mathison -
Elizabeth Lawrence
School Nurse -
Leslie Stefanson
Kelly -
Richard Council
Noel -
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All Critics (163) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (116) | Rotten (51) | DVD (42)
With Unbreakable , Mr. Shyamalan establishes himself as a distinctive auteur with a very personal style.
Top CriticWhereas The Sixth Sense left audiences surprised but surprisingly comfortable, this more mature and ambitious movie preserves its ambiguities and keeps everyone guessing.
Samuel L. Jackson plays a comic-book-art collector named Elijah, as in the prophet, and his stare could probably burn a hole through Superman's Fortress of Solitude.
Thrill-kill plots, cardboard characters and zap-pow editing are not for Shyamalan, who takes his good, thoughtful time to snare audiences in his dark web.
Unbreakable is a film that begins with a train wreck and then, figuratively speaking, becomes one.
Even if the ending doesn't entirely succeed, it doesn't cheat, and it comes at the end of an uncommonly absorbing movie.
Interesting premise, but ultimately disappointing.
Sequel talk often sparks because this unconventionally contemplative comic-book film is M. Night Shyamalan's only idea worth continuing -a patient, downbeat and thrillingly unpredictable drama that still stands today as Shyamalan's visionary masterpiece.
A superhero origin story for an audience that appreciates human stories...
With all these superlatives, how could Shyamalan so badly misjudge vital elements to the story? The melodramatic elements take away substantially from much of what could otherwise be hailed as a masterpiece.
The characters (especially Willis') are drab and uninteresting, and the story, even allowing for the supernatural overtones, is unconvincing.
The old magic fails to re-materialize, thanks to overwrought melodrama and contrived plot developments.
(...) Un director con absoluto control de sus medios, con mucho ingenio visual, con buen dominio de sus actores y, en particular, una inquietud por crear personajes e historias diferentes a las que abundan en Hollywood.
although the subject matter is fantastical, Shyamalan keeps it down to earth with moody realism and a refusal to overstate anything
For fans like me, the movie is unbeatable; for non-fans, it may be unbearable. (Blu-ray Edition)
a little too pretentious but still good
Shyamalan takes us in close, picking up sad and angry whispers; his people almost never raise their voices.
The dialogue has more pauses than a High School production of Samuel Beckett. And while that works up to a point, you find yourself wanting to grab the characters and shake them out of their introspective stupors.
The story is propelled by the idea that we live in a world so desperate for heroes, that people can go to extreme measures to either imagine or create them.
Shyamalan has already established his own personal stamp for his films.
It should play well to the fanboys, but it's obviously meant for everyone else. How you react to this material will probably determine your response to the big shocker at the end.
Remarkable, dark, and surprising.
Audience Reviews for Unbreakable
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Joseph Dunn: I'll just shoot him once.
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- David Dunne: If you shoot me, the bullets will bounce back...
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- Elijah Prince: They call me Mr.Glass.
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- Elijah Prince: This is an art gallery, my friend, and this is a piece of art.
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- Elijah Prince: Now that we know who you are... I know who I am. I'm not a mistake! It all makes sense. In a comic, you know how you can tell who the arch-villain's going to be? He's the exact opposite of the hero, and most time's they're friends, like you and me. I should've known way back when. You know why, David? Because of the kids. They called me Mr. Glass.
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- Elijah Prince: Do you know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world, to not know why you're here.
Discussion Forum
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Latest News on Unbreakable
September 3, 2010:
Shyamalan Used Unbreakable 2 Ideas for Night ChroniclesStill holding out hope for an "Unbreakable 2"? Bad news: M. Night Shyamalan says he took his idea...
February 22, 2010:
Bruce Willis Says Die Hard 5 Is Coming, Unbreakable 2 PossibleBruce Willis says he expects a fifth "Die Hard" to happen next year -- and oh by the way, M. Night...
September 19, 2008:
Shyamalan Ponders Unbreakable SequelSamuel L. Jackson is game, and M. Night Shyamalan sounds like he's interested -- are we witnessing...
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Foreign Titles
- Incassable (FR)
The signature twist of M. Night Shyamalan in his super hero thriller Unbreakable is inferior to the "oh god I get it now" surprise of "The Sixth Sense". Nevertheless it has it's own unique, heart pounding after effect. I've always been particularly aware of the self indulgence that Shyamalan has cast upon himself since his early success mostly because the first film of his I saw was "The Last Airbender" and hated it. Unbreakable is what i'd call his last "pure" film before he went completely insane and looked in the mirror and figured he saw the new Hitchcock. This features engaging performances all around, in particular Bruce Willis who has a more profoundly mysterious character than his role as the hero of The Sixth Sense and in addition a cunningly cast Samuel L Jackson who gives what is one of his best performances following Pulp Fiction and preceeding Black Snake Moan. Solid tension is stretched through all of the acts, revealing insignificant details that add up to a climactic finale. At the risk of sounding like an idiot I think as a whole this is superior to The Sixth Sense both structurally and aesthetically. As a film on it's own I think it has more ambition than a regular potboiler and features many shiny segments of masterfully inventive direction. This is not your average superhero flick but an original and creative idea, an intriguing one at that. Shyamalan is slightly more emotionally involved with the characters that he writes and crafts here than in his previous efforts, and that is a brilliant sign that one day the talented director will once again surpass the normal suspense thriller standard. It's too badly ironic that his career then plummeted.