Unbreakable

Here's an interesting question: If an artist debuts with a brilliant work, and follows it up with something that essentially duplicates the first work in form, content and execution, is the new work still worthwhile? For that matter, is it still art?

You'll wonder about this because M. Night Shyamalan, writer and director of last year's surprise blockbuster "The Sixth Sense," has followed up that stunning success with "Unbreakable," a topically unrelated film that nonetheless resembles "The Sixth Sense" more than some sequels resemble their predecessors. "Unbreakable" is brilliantly conceived and executed, and it's very tempting to recommend it without reservation — except that it costs about half as much to simply rent "The Sixth Sense."

On the surface, "Unbreakable" isn't much like "The Sixth Sense" at all. The latter film (as everyone knows) concerned a haunting little kid who saw dead people and the dogged psychologist who tried to figure out what was really going on. "Unbreakable," on the other hand, tells the tale of David Dunn (Bruce Willis), a man who mysteriously and miraculously survives a horrific train wreck without a scratch on him. After this, Dunn is contacted by Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a crippled man who speaks obliquely and gets what he wants. Price posits, in his deliberately mysterious way, that Dunn is "unbreakable," a real-life comic book superhero. From then on, the movie pivots on Dunn deciding to accept or reject Price's idea, and details the consequences once he makes a decision.

Not all that similar. But let's look harder. Both films star Bruce Willis as an unhappy, unfulfilled man coping with a troubled marriage to a comely brunette, with Robin Penn Warren here subbing for Olivia Williams. Willis does essentially the same things as in the earlier film; he tries to come to terms with the supernatural as it exists in the world around us and make peace with his comely brunette. He also delivers essentially the same nuanced, realistically distant, affecting performance. "The Sixth Sense" made a star of Haley Joel Osment, while "Unbreakable" features Spencer Treat Clark, who resembles Osment about as much as it is possible to resemble another human being, as Willis' son. Both films take place in Philadelphia, and feature Shyamalan in a cameo as a jerk of some kind.

More broadly, both films take subjects typical of crap cinema — ghosts in "The Sixth Sense," super powers in "Unbreakable" — and give them an enormously skilled art-film treatment, complete with dense, tightly constructed scripts, imaginative uses of angle, color and light in the camerawork, cool, string-dominated music from James Newton Howard, and searching acting from all involved. Shyamalan cultivated an extraordinarily delicate, scrupulously observed, half-real, half-fantasy atmosphere in "The Sixth Sense," and brings it into "Unbreakable" undimmed and completely unaltered. Finally, the two films share a plot structure; the arcs and incidents of the two films are the same, including the big penultimate scene where the people with magical powers finally figure out a way to use them for the good of humankind, and the surprise twist that invalidates much of what has come before.

If you've seen "The Sixth Sense," and you watch "Unbreakable," everything will come back to you. Where "The Sixth Sense" surprised, "Unbreakable" merely causes a flicker of interest, and the feeling that we've been down this road before. You'll expect the actors to behave as they do, and the climax to come when it does, and the twist to come when it does, and nothing makes much of an impact. How effective can all this wonderful craftsmanship be when we've seen it all before, deployed toward the exact same goals and with the exact same effect?

"Unbreakable" is an extraordinarily well-made film; like "The Sixth Sense," it gives you hope that one day all makers of popular cinema may decide to stop talking down to their audiences. But it's hard to imagine why Shyamalan decided to put so much effort into making a film that is way beyond derivative, that is almost a copy of a film released only a year ago. Shyamalan is so talented that he'll probably make something fresh and new for us eventually. Until then, you'll get better value for your money at the video store.

ANOTHER SCREENING ANECDOTE

Those of you who reside in the Washington area and subscribe to the Washington Post have the good fortune to read Stephen Hunter's reviews every Friday. He is a master of film criticism, knowledgable without being pedantic, energetic without being flippant, as interested and interesting as anyone I've ever read. I hope I've learned something from reading his reviews. That said, he wrote a verse review of "The Grinch" like I did, and I schooled his ass. (Check out his review here.) Not everyone can write doggerel as well as I can. There is no shame in it. It's not a particularly useful skill most of the time, in any case.

Anyway, the preview for "Unbreakable" was this morning at the MPAA screening room, which means all the press people are there. I attended it with the estimable Robert Kahn (who pronounced the MPAA seats"comfortable," which they are, believe you me). I made a remark to the effect that I had schooled Stephen Hunter in the Battle of the Versified Grinch Reviews, and Robert assented. Not thirty seconds later, Stephen Hunter sat down in the seat to the right of Robert, and not ten seconds after that someone came up to him and complimented him on his verse review, saying "You should do every review like that." I forget if I still had the Diamondback with my review in it out or not. Robert and I both smiled and said nothing. An incident barely averted.

Also, nothing against the man, but Stephen Hunter breathes like he has a Lego blocking his esophagus or something. I mean, he breathes loud. Michael O'Sullivan (idiot reviewer from the Post; kind of the 'anti-Hunter') was also there, making an ass of himself. But you knew that. End gossip transmission.

Science Fiction Home

Movie Reviews Home

Spam-O-Matic Home