Unbreakable

Being incredibly curious, it is within my nature to love a good mystery. All along, I thought that this was what this movie intended to be marketed as. What was Bruce Willis going to be? Why is he the sole survivor? I was so afraid of finding out the answer before going to see the movie that I had to refrain from reading any commentary about the movie in any newspaper my coins came across.

Well, it turns out that this is no secret the minute the movie starts. The first scene of this movie is a quote that flashes across the screen a la Star Wars and it gives everything away. In case you don’t know, which believe me is not the point of this movie, Bruce Willis is a superhero. Or at least fated to be one.

Let me clarify one point. This movie is not meant to be a mystery to us, the audience. We find out Bruce is a superhero within the first 15 seconds. Bruce Willis takes an hour and a half from our lives and 7 bucks to figure it out. That’s right, when you pay for this movie, you pay for a character to take the entire movie to learn something you know within seconds. Now, granted, the story line is rather well done. There is an excellent path of discovery which we, as an audience are taken down. Well, again, let me rephrase, we are not taken down it. The main character is.

At this point, though, it doesn’t really matter to me that the plot is well developed, the characters multi-dimensioned, the background well placed, the soundtrack artfully done… I already know what the characters don’t and the point of the movie is for them to find out. If the mystery had lasted a little longer this would have been well done. It wasn’t. The only thing that saved this movie from being banished into one of the greater disappointments of media hype was Samuel Jackson. Is this movie worth it? Yes, but you walk out waiting for the sequel to come out tomorrow, which I consider a cruel cruel cliffhanger indeed.