Superhero Media: Unbreakable

It must be at least a decade since I last watched Unbreakable, and I admit that the poor quality of the later films in the series, Split and Glass, had lessened my remembrance of this film. When I finally sat down to watch Unbreakable, however, I was truly impressed by just how good the film really is, as a stand-alone. Like many who went through a Film Studies major in the 2000s, I was, for a time, fond of criticising the patchy work of M. Night Shymalan, and whilst he's never really lived up to the potential he showed early on, Unbreakable remains a competent and well-executed film. The story begins when David Dunn, an out of work security guard, is the only survivor of a high-speed train wreck, walking away without even a scratch, only to find himself shortly confronted with Elijah Price, an eccentric Comic Book collector with a rare condition that makes his bones extremely brittle. Price is convinced that superheroes exist and goes to great lengths to demonstrate to Dunn that he is a superman unaware of his legendary power. 

To call Unbreakable a "slow burn" would be fair, calling it a "mood piece" may not even be far off the mark, as the pace is slow and the focus is more on Dunn trying to save his career and marriage than heroics of any form. Not to say that the film fails to be engaging at all, just that when I watched it between two Spider-Man films, there was a bit of cognitive whiplash. As much as I enjoy web-slinging, superhero fights and feats of strength, the slower pace and more grounded approach of Unbreakable was a welcome break, and the film is very enjoyable in its own right. Price's rationalising of the uncanny with comic book logic is played brilliantly, sounding just as dumb as these things do to outsiders, but still following their own form of logic; the scene where Price considers rows of comics to solve his conundrum is pretty much the best visual representation of how my brain works you will ever see. 

So is there room for a David Dunn in my Ultimate Alliance games? Probably not, unless I find the perfect miniature already being made somewhere. Neither Dunn nor "Mister Glass" are great characters in their own rights, or particularly original, but it is those same broad strokes that help make Unbreakable so compelling. There is plenty of room in the genre for more grounded and sober takes on the idea of superheroes and super-powers, so long as not everything is as slow a burn as this version. On the rare occasion I do ask for more "adult" superhero fare, as the genre is primarily for children, it is work like Unbreakable of which I am thinking, contemplative, human-centered narratives that meditate on the idea of the superhero, not just the blood and sex fests of "adult" comic lines. It's kind of a shame that the follow-ons to this film were so poor, as it does drive the more casual viewers away, though, thankfully, the film nerd audience have gone back to reappraise this first outing for Dunn. Well worth a look if you're only usually watching the MCU or Arrowverse.