Unbreakable DVD - WTF?

[bernse]

The wife and I rented this "movie" on Friday night. After a nice meal, I eagerly pop it into the PS2 and we sit back and watch it.

2 Hours later I was sitting there thinking "What the fuck?" I spent $4 renting that???

I mean, this movie had so much potential but they ruined it on this "comic book" angle. I can't really think of a way the movie could have been worse. It did have a bit of a suprise ending, but come on. It had the potential to have some real good action and drama in it but in the end it was about as exiting as a fart. We watched Proof of Life after that and I thought it was 10x the movie that the Unbreakable dud was....and thats not saying much.

Am I alone here thinking this or did I just have unrealistic high hopes after the Sixth Sense?

[lno]

A little from column A, a little from column B.

[Amp]

It could have been worse. You could have spent $14 on movie tickets and another $14 on popcorn and pop like I did. I felt so cheated I really wanted to demand my money back.

Unbreakable sucked big time.

[Qwertyasdfg]

Yeah, unbreakable sucked.

[Mahaloth]

It was actually a good movie, but only if they follow up on it by making the other two movies in the trilogy. Yes, it was written to be a trilogy, but M. Night Shamalamadingdong(whatever) said he isn't planning on making those movies now or anytime soon. Bruce Willis said he thought they'd start making them in January of 2002, but Night is giving the totally opposite vibe.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it even if it is one film, but I admit that it had a terrible ending...if it ends there.

[BlackKnight]

Originally posted by bernse
I mean, this movie had so much potential but they ruined it on this "comic book" angle.
That wasn't an "angle". That was the entire point of the movie. :)

But yeah, the movie was pretty bad. Not horrible, but it just seemed to be paced a bit slow, and some parts that were meant to be dramatic came of humorous.

[Snooooopy]

Originally posted by Mahaloth
It was actually a good movie, but only if they follow up on it by making the other two movies in the trilogy. Yes, it was written to be a trilogy, but M. Night Shamalamadingdong(whatever) said he isn't planning on making those movies now or anytime soon.

Shamalamadingdong is my favorite way of butchering his name, too. :)

[Smeghead]

Weird - I watched it last night on my PS2, too!

I thought it was OK - for an episode of the X-files. Kind of silly for a movie, though. For the record, I didn't pay anything to watch it - my roommate borrowed it from a coworker who owns it.

[GraceTX]

You weren't the only one. The movie sucked.

Here's the original thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=47726) I always refer to the movie was Unbearable.

[Miller]

Well, damn. I thought it was a fantastic movie. Who'd have thought it: a realistic superhero movie. It was slow paced, but never boring. The ending was a little abrupt, but it sure caught me off guard. I'd love to see a sequel. Speaking of which, the rumour (emphasis on rumour there, don't have anything like cite for this) I heard was that this was part two in a trilogy starting with Sixth Sense, basically, a thematic trilogy like Terry Gilliam's Brazil/Time Bandits/Baron Munchausen trilogy.

[bernse]

Originally posted by BlackKnight
Originally posted by bernse
I mean, this movie had so much potential but they ruined it on this "comic book" angle.
That wasn't an "angle". That was the entire point of the movie. :)

But yeah, the movie was pretty bad. Not horrible, but it just seemed to be paced a bit slow, and some parts that were meant to be dramatic came of humorous.

Heh. Too bad that was the whole fuckin' problem with the movie.... is entire point! :)

Why not just make it about some regular dude that can't get hurt and he goes about learning about it and exploiting it. Man, that would have at least had some good possibilities.

[Kaitlyn]

Originally posted by bernse
Originally posted by BlackKnight
Originally posted by bernse
I mean, this movie had so much potential but they ruined it on this "comic book" angle.
That wasn't an "angle". That was the entire point of the movie. :)

But yeah, the movie was pretty bad. Not horrible, but it just seemed to be paced a bit slow, and some parts that were meant to be dramatic came of humorous.

Heh. Too bad that was the whole fuckin' problem with the movie.... is entire point! :)

Why not just make it about some regular dude that can't get hurt and he goes about learning about it and exploiting it. Man, that would have at least had some good possibilities.

That is exactly what happened in the movie. It just took a long time for him to figure out that he really was incapable of being harmed. I liked it a lot. The whole idea of what would a superhero be like if he existed in our world is a good one, and I liked the presentation and the performances a lot.

[waxteeth]

I thought it was quite odd and not at all what I expected.
I didn't hate it but would not recommend it either.

[Myrr21]

So...am I to assume that none of y'all are fans of the comic medium, cause that's essentially what it was--an excellent comic in the form of a movie...

[Crunchy Frog]

I think you may have hit it Myrr. I'm a comic collector and I thought it was a good movie. Not as good as The Sixth Sense, but I never thought it sucked either. However, people I know who are not fans of the comic book medium tend to not like the film, or describe it as 'ok at best.'

[Kaitlyn]

Originally posted by Myrr21
So...am I to assume that none of y'all are fans of the comic medium, cause that's essentially what it was--an excellent comic in the form of a movie...

I take offense at that, Myrr! I said above that I liked the movie. And I'll have you know that I have the first 250 Uncanny X-men (plus annuals and giant size)in near-mint condition (including 1 and 94) and have nm 1st editions of The Dark Knight Returns. I mention the latter because I found the mood of Unbreakable very similar to DKR.

Besides, I have over 4,000 comics.

[Myrr21]

Err...I meant to say "aren't", though I think everybody got that.

And by "y'all", I meant those who didn't like it.

And your 4000 beats my 900 or so

[Kaitlyn]

Originally posted by Myrr21
Err...I meant to say "aren't", though I think everybody got that.

And by "y'all", I meant those who didn't like it.

And your 4000 beats my 900 or so

Substituting aren't for are we get this:

"So...am I to assume that none of y'all aren't fans of the comic medium, cause that's essentially what it was--an excellent comic in the form of a movie..."

Much clearer, thanks for clarifying that for me.


If y'all isn't the same as "all of you", then what does it mean? I'm afraid I'm not fluent in Southern.

[Myrr21]

*smack*
Well hell. I'll just go on pretending that I know English. Why did I second-guess that? Somebody explain this to me.

[dangergene]

-back on track.

I'm a HUGE comic fan ($50+ per week on the medium), whilst
my wife won't read anything beyond Eisner. We watched the
film in the cinema, and I sat in wrapt amazement as the
story unfolded, slowly yes, but no slower than an issue to
issue story would play over a couple of months. My wife on
the other hand sat bored out of her skull (she had problems
with the amount of dialogue and lack of physical action).

The irony being, she really liked the X-men movie. So what
do we see here?

Unbreakable was a great comic book in the form of a movie,
whilst Xmen was a great comic-book film in the form of an
action film.

Why is it that the really good comic-book movies are never
obviously comic-book-movies?

El Gene-o!

[astro]

The movie failed as a movie for me in that it advanced the meandering plot about as fast a geriatric snail goes uphill (not that fast is good but UB was absurdly slow) and the ending was too cute and self indulgent by far. It was an interesting idea but the director's story telling abilities lacked focus and coherence. I can understand how fanboys could get a lot more out of the intricacies of the plot and the ham handed pseudo-mythic subtext the director kept slowly and relentlessly hitting us over the head with but, really... it just wasn't that effective as a good story.

[Mofo Rising]

I really, really dislike UNBREAKABLE. You can read my thoughts, if you care, in the thread posted above. I thought it was a failed experiment at the time. Now I just think it's incredibly pretentious, which is why it failed. Who cares about a movie that talks the arse?

What really gets my ire is people referring to this over and over as a "comic book movie", and the assumption that if you like one you should like the other. As if it was a validation of the entire medium. It's really a movie trying to validate superheros, and a bad one at that. Validating superheros can kiss my ass. They weren't that great an idea in the first place. Of course, that's an entirely different rant.

Besides, if you want to see revisionist superheros done well, read WATCHMEN.

[GraceTX]

I love comic books. Collecting them for years until I gave them to my brother and a friend before I moved to Dallas. That said, I still hated the movie. It sucked. There are people who like comic books can't hate the movie. A bad movie is a bad movie. It doesn't matter what it's based on or about.

[Zebra]

Well I liked Unbreakable in the same way I liked Gattaca.

Why do you think it had to be an action movie. Why can't a movie be about how people think and feel?

So you didn't like it. Is four bucks misspent so bad?

[DocCathode]

Yes I do collect comics. I have both Dark Knight
Returns and Watchmen. I loved unbreakable. No spandex.
No mad scientist threatening the world with a death ray or
a zombie army. Yes, the pacing was slow. I thought this was largely due to Willis' reluctance to believe that he is superhuman. It was an examination of the standard 'I've got super powers! I must wear a costume and fight crime!'. The comic Star Brand did the same thing. SB gets powers from a dying alien in issue 1. As a rational human being in a world where superheroes are only fiction, it takes him quite a while to put on a bodysuit and fight crime.

Batman has the Joker etc. The X-men have Magneto,etc. They live in worlds populated by super humans. Willis' lives in what is mostly the real world. He has no super villians to fight. In the real world, no mask or dishuise will last. Supes takes off Clarks' glasses and no one recognizes him?! No one has ever compared Batman's eyes and chin to photos of likely suspects (Actually, Silver St cloud did exactly that. She decided to leave Gotham shortly after deducing Bats' identity. No villian has ever hit upon this strategy however.)? Unbreakable was based on the question: what would a superhero do in the real world? What if you changed nothing but that man-no medals from the cops, no Bat-Signal, no Fortress of Solitude or Hall of Justice?

If you did like Unbreakable, I recommend the Silent Invasion series. It's a blend of SF, hard bolied detective, and film noir. In the first half of the series, flying saucers appear about three times. There's a wonderful mood of hidden conspiracies, paranoia, and the question of the protagonists sanity.

[thinksnow]

Number Six

If y'all isn't the same as "all of you", then what does it mean? I'm afraid I'm not fluent in Southern.
Y'all = you. All y'all = all of you.

Also, to the OP, I though Proof of Life was pretty good. Haven't seen UB, though.

[Morrison's Lament]

I dunno, I liked Unbreakable in that "Hollywood movies all suck anyway, why not endure this and suck out any entertainment possible at the same time" kind of way.

Proof of Life put me to sleep in twenty minutes, however. Did I miss anything?

--- G. Raevn

[Tokiwoki]

My boyfriend and I went to see Unbreakable when it first came out in the movies. The only good part was when the guy fell down the stairs. Crack! Ok, maybe not a "good" part. It's actually the only scene I really remember. We talked during the whole movie...and so did every one else in the theater. The movie was such a waste of money.

[Bill H.]

I actually liked it. It wasn't great or anything though.

One thing about it: I liked it better the next day after thinking about it a bit. I thought it was a really good exploration of how a superhero and villan could happen in the real world. I can't think of another movie that really tried that. All the others are either cartoony like Dick Tracy or all action like X-Men. Not that there's anything wrong with those two movies...

[AETBOND417]

Originally posted by bernse
The wife and I rented this "movie" on Friday night. After a nice meal, I eagerly pop it into the PS2 and we sit back and watch it.

2 Hours later I was sitting there thinking "What the fuck?" I spent $4 renting that???


You're fretting $4 on a movie when you wasted over $300 on the PS2?


;)

[pepperlandgirl]

What a crummy movie that was. I paid good money to see both of those movies in the theatre, but I really, really regretted the money I spent on Proof of Life.

[Gozu Tashoya]

Originally posted by Bill H.
I actually liked it. It wasn't great or anything though.

One thing about it: I liked it better the next day after thinking about it a bit. I thought it was a really good exploration of how a superhero and villan could happen in the real world. I can't think of another movie that really tried that.

What about Mystery Men? RAGE!!! :D

[Myrr21]

Originally posted by pepperlandgirl
What a crummy movie that was. I paid good money to see both of those movies in the theatre, but I really, really regretted the money I spent on Proof of Life.
Bad enough that I can't even remember what that movie was about, or anything else about it other than the name...

[Drastic]

I'm pretty sure I could break it.

I'm not ripped or anything, but DVDs just aren't that tough. They may talk big, and may pretend to flex with a little shear force, but add a little more and they fall to pieces.

Oh, what?

Nevermind.

[bernse]

Originally posted by AETBOND417

You're fretting $4 on a movie when you wasted over $300 on the PS2?

;)

I spent $450 CDN on it. Worth every penny. A true "home entertainment box". And yes, that movie sucked so bad I am mad that I voluntarily handed over my hard earned money for to watch that dripping excrement of a "movie".


Quick Synopsis of movie:

First 1-1/2 hours (approx): Protagonist slowly learns he is unique

Next 5-10 minutes (approx): Uses special "powers" to do good

Next 5-10 minutes (then end): The Weird and spooky ending (don't get your hopes up, it wasn't that good. It certainly isn't nearly enough to save the film)

The scary part is, I am not even really exaggerating here.

Have I successfully conveyed the feeling I didn't like this show? ;)

[elfkin477]

::bump::

Now that I've seen the movie, I have an opinion on it. It was ok. It...lacked development, yeah, that was the problem with it. It was basically the skeleton to what could have been a really good movie. If there was a book (is there?) I'm sure that it, the book, would be better, because it had that "adaptation" feel to it- pieces were missing that could have made it better. I'm not a big comic book fan, though being the older sibling of one has caused me to read more of them than I would of otherwise, but I don't think it was a worse movie than X-Men; X-Men seemed to be similarly lacking in details and I didn't like what they did with Rouge's age, sort of combining her character with Jubaliee who wasn't in the movie at all. At least they were better than Mystery Men.

[SouprChckn]

Well in one of the DVD extras, I remember the director talking about how Unbreakable was actually written as a long single part of a traditional three part story. It lacks development because its technically what would normally be 30 mins of discovery and development stretched to about 2 hours. I think its a flimsy excuse for a slow movie but thats just me.

[bernse]

Well, after reading the past couple posts and thinking about the movie again since its been several weeks, I rethought my OP on the subject.



I came to the same conclusion. It was a bonafide waste of 75 cents of plastic. What a piece of shit. M. Shamalamadingdong (thanks snooopy) should be put in permanent purgatory for making it.

[BlackKnight]

You know, the more I think about it the more I don't dislike the movie. I don't actively like it, but my distaste for it has waned. If a sequel is made, and if that sequel meshes well with and builds upon what was in the original, I could see the original in a much better light. And if a third is made that brings everything together from the first two movies beautifully, I could imagine forgiving the original movie totally.

I somehow doubt that will happen though.

[Typo Negative]

I loved the concept. Samuel L. Jackson was great.

The problem was Bruce Willis(or at least how he was directed). I kept waiting for signs of life from this guy, or thinking maybe he took a serious blow to the head in the train-wreck. No one in that situation would be that, well, slow. Christ, he didn't smile at all till the second half.

[LorieSmurf]

I loved Unbreakable. Loved it! So much I even bought the DVD. :)

Lorie

[Podkayne]

I couldn't agree more with the sentiments expressed in this thread.

If I pay to rent a movie, or to see it in a theater, I damn well expect to enjoy it. If I don't enjoy a movie, by gum, people are going to hear about it. After all, I shelled out for it, and it is my right as a consumer to be entertained by whatever I spend money on.

There are universally-agreed-upon standards as to what makes a good movie. The movie industry should take care to eliminate any movie that will not be adored by every viewer, and it's criminal that they fail to do so.

If I watch a movie that I do not like, I have wasted my time, I have wasted my money, and I have wasted a piece of my very soul. After that movie is over, I'm not the same person I was before the opening credits. If it is a bad movie, than I am diminished as a human being.

Not to mention the cost to society: the resources used in the production and distribution of the movie, the infrastructure involved in showing the movie at a theater (heating/cooling, electricity, employment of ushers, etc.) the aforementioned price of a CD which could have been used for a DVD that everyone would enjoy . . .

I commend the Dopers who have made fun of the director's name. After all, if he didn't want his name made fun of, he shouldn't have a silly foreign name to begin with, and, if for some reason he can't change his name to a normal-sounding one, he should take special care not to make movies that won't be universally enjoyed by everyone in the world.

[barton]

Podkayne, that was a lovely bit of sarcasm. :) At least I hope it was sarcasm...

I however have no such skills, so I must conclude the folks that didn't enjoy Unbreakable have serious attention span problems. If an elegantly presented, thought-provoking 90-minute film throws you into a fit, I suggest consulting a shrink.

My only beef with Unbreakable is the decision to cut the extra footage on the DVD. As the film is essentially a long character development piece, I didn't understand why they cut neat chunks of character development. The film didn't feel long to me - it felt a tad short. From the director's comments he seemed to imply several times ('we' felt...) that it was not his decision alone.

Yes, it ended suddenly, but that is consistent with its overall feel as an introduction. If anything, it's amazing how strongly it stands by itself given its 'Act I' construction.

[bernse]

Originally posted by barton


I however have no such skills, so I must conclude the folks that didn't enjoy Unbreakable have serious attention span problems. If an elegantly presented, thought-provoking 90-minute film throws you into a fit, I suggest consulting a shrink.


I agree 100%. Problem is Unbreakable was none of those things.

My most sincere apologies :rolleyes: if anyone got offended since I couldn't remember the directors name.

For the record, I truly enjoyed his The Sixth Sense but was more than a little disapointed with his next "movie."

In the voice of that little wrinkly Simpsons charcter-
"You took 2 hours of my life and I want it baaaaaaaaack".

;)

[Cervaise]

Podkayne: Hee hee!

I'm of two minds regarding Unbreakable. I think it's definitely an experiment, and I have to raise my eyebrows at everybody who complains that Hollywood keeps throwing us the same old crap (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=78390), and then when something comes along that defies expectations, they don't like that either.

While watching it, I was certainly having trouble with it; halfway through, I was thinking, "Am I supposed to be taking this seriously, or what?" It's a major leap of disbelief to go where the movie asks you to go, no question.

I do think the movie is based on a fundamental miscalculation. To wit, most comic books use these fantastic settings to explore allegorical issues. X-Men is only the most obvious example, of course. In other words, since it's hard to look at difficult questions head on, it becomes easier to think about them if they're tweaked, transplated into a different setting. (Naturally, comic books aren't the only medium that does this.)

Unbreakable, on the other hand, takes this storytelling device as its core premise. The fantastic stuff we don't think about in other comic books? Unbreakable looks directly at it.

Some people hate comic books, and naturally will hate Unbreakable by extension. Some people enjoy comic books, but find their credulity challenged by taking seriously the very aspect of comic books that doesn't bear much thought. (I fall into this group.) Some people enjoy comic books, and are fascinated by the idea of considering something they never really thought about before.

So: Unbreakable is a unique and audacious experiment. It doesn't work for all viewers. For others, it works very well. There is no objective judgment of its quality beyond that.