The wait is over, and the new M. Night
Shyamalan movie is before us. We have been kept in the dark for so long, and it was worth
every second of it. If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t let anything spoil a
minute of it; stop reading this, and go see this incredible movie right now.I’m glad you’re back. We knew
this much: Bruce Willis is miraculously unharmed after a terrible train wreck near
Philadelphia. We saw the trailer in which his wife admits not remembering him ever being
sick. We are dying to know more, and in the opening frame, Shyamalan gives us some comic
book trivia. It seems weird, but we trust Shyamalan and we let go. What follows is a story
that would so easily spin out of control of many directors out there, but somehow
Shyamalan tames it without killing it. As Sam Jackson’s character says, "you
need to keep an open mind".
He is Elijah, a man struck from
birth with a rare bone disease, which makes his bones shatter like glass. Confined in a
hospital bed for months at a time, he spent most of his life exploring the art of comic
books. He finds an entire philosophy in them, a legacy of our civilization for times to
come. Following the comic book logic, as a modern prophet, he believes that there is
someone in the world completely unlike him, a person who cannot be hurt or injured,
capable of infinite strength, a super hero, or at least a hero. Someone who is, unlike
him, unbreakable. After the train wreck leaves David Dunn (Willis) the only survivor,
Elijah thinks he has found his hero. The tough part is convincing him of that. After all,
it’s not every day you learn that you can bench press more than 300 pounds, just
because you want to.
The comparison with Sixth Sense
is inevitable, and Shyamalan doesn’t run away from it. Again we have Willis unaware
of his place in the world, and even though we have a boy he’s close to, it is Elijah
who reveals his own secret to him, however bizarre it may seem at first. The styling of
the movie is immaculate, with Elijah dressed in black and purple coats, surrounded with
comic book drawings. The story will follow the comic book cliches to the very ending,
which may or may not be as surprising as that of Sixth Sense. But at no time will the
movie appear immature or will it idealize the world of drawings over the real one. Almost
every sequence is immensely powerful, and some of them are so suspenseful they will leave
you breathless. The amazing thing about Shyamalan is that he puts so much thrill and
suspense in the movie, but still keeps a PG-13 rating, completely avoiding the scenes of
graphic violence and/or sex.
Willis and Jackson who worked
together on Die Hard with a Vengeance and appeared in Pulp Fiction trusted Shyamalan when
he told them he’s writing a script specifically for them. His dialogues are very
sharp, and actors deliver it with near perfection. I simply cannot imagine a more fitting
actor to play Elijah than Sam Jackson, whose almost menacing presence, brooding voice and
piercing eyes emphasize his mysterious nature. Shyamalan says he even went so far as to
write the words he knew would sound a certain way when uttered by Jackson, himself a comic
book freak. If you did what I told you and let go, every moment of this movie makes so
much sense, from the gut-wrenching opening scene to the final twist, but most of them do
so with a delay, making the pieces fall into place at different times. That alone demands
a repeat viewing. You’ll want to see the best movie of the year more than one time.