Post by Rey Kahuka on Jul 27, 2021 14:48:40 GMT

The Unbreakable connection overshadowed one of the darkest twists in cinema history. The audience watches her survive an encounter with this superhuman monster, only to find out she's still living with her sex predator uncle at the end. Brilliant setup, weaving in those flashback throughout the film, making it look like she eventually got away from him. Then at the end the cop says, "Your guardian is here to pick you up." She doesn't move. "Your uncle is here to pick you up." The hopeless look on her face. So depressing, such a chilling twist.
Shyamalan has maybe three good movies. The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Split. I guess Signs is fun if you watch it as a comedy. Everything else is terrible.
2, maybe 3 years ago, I re-watched Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. I think the Sixth Sense is a quality movie, but I don't get the unabashed adulation it gets. It's good and has some truly impactful sequences, but overall I find it to be overlong and somewhat tedious. Unbreakable, on the other hand, that movie was really something. It's brilliantly shot, everyone has great chemistry in it, the music is terrific, everything about it clicked for me.
It's weird that you watch something like that, and then you watch dogshit like The Village, The Happening, Lady in the Water and so on, and you wonder where his sense of filmmaking went. He clearly has talent and a unique ability, but it's like he becomes so enamored of twists that builds the movie around that and everything feels shoehorned in. Plus, his lesser entries are so devoid of tension and the performances are largely awful.
Unbreakable is an incredible film. Literally ahead of its time. If it came out today, it would be hailed as a fresh take on the superhero genre. I love the simplicity of the concept. "What if a superhuman just wanted to be a regular guy." And it's played as a drama, not an action flick at all. The twist is clever in that early Shyamalan 'this is so obvious I can't believe I didn't see it coming' kind of way.
Filmmakers are like musicians, sometimes the creative impetus evolves into something incredible while other times entire albums are very clearly going through the motions. In Shyamalan's case, it's easy to discern his passion projects, the stuff he really has great inspiration for; from his 'I kind of have an idea here and I might as well cash in' projects. For me, Split was a great film and linking it to Unbreakable was a fun wink to his fans that should've ended there. Glass was Shyamalan at his worst, cashing in on the 'superhero trilogy' concept and trying to outthink himself as well as the audience. "They'll never see this coming." No we won't, because it makes no fucking narrative sense and ruins the entire story.

