Article written by Samuel Burnett.
Spoiler warning: This article will discuss the plots of both Unbreakable and Split. As this is an M. Night Shyamalan movie, plot twists play a big part in the plots and will be spoiled.
Consider this movie poster the barrier between you and potential spoilers. Scroll past it at your own peril.
You have been warned.
Unbreakable was a movie well ahead of its time. Had it come out today, people would have rolled their eyes at it. “Really? Another superhero movie?” But, despite a possible oversaturation in the market, it would make sense for someone wanting to make a film deconstructing the superhero genre and portraying it in a more realistic fashion.
However, Unbreakable came out in the year 2000, long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Nolan Batman trilogy would bring audiences back to superheroes of the big screen.
The seeds for the reemergence of superheroes had only been recently sowed by the first X-Men movie which had been released only months before, so why would anyone want to make a movie deconstructing superheroes?
Unbreakable emerged to generally positive reviews and scored modestly at the box office, but it didn’t set the world on fire and was quickly forgotten by most.
However, as more and more superhero movies were released over the years, people started looking at this movie with different eyes. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so strange to deconstruct superheroes and their enemies. Making a small-scale film about a man who may or may not have super strength and what that means about his future was now inspired. And that tracking shot climax will go down in history as one of the most powerful superhero confrontations ever put to camera.
It played with the concept of superpowers in general. Instead of being as powerful as a locomotive like another famous hero, protagonist David Dunn, played masterfully by Bruce Willis, is simply stronger than the average person. Can he lift buildings? Probably not. Can he fight a single enemy with relative ease? Definitely.
The film also began to receive acclaim over the realism of its ending, which had initially divided audiences. At the end of the movie, Dunn discovers that his friend and ally, Elijah Price (played to perfection by Samuel L. Jackson) has actually been a villain this whole time. While Price gloats about finding a foe to battle against for all eternity, Dunn simply leaves and calls the authorities, and Price is incarcerated in a psychiatric ward for the criminally insane.
The film was now ahead of its time.
Sadly, the same could not be said for director, M. Night Shyamalan. Although a young man at the time, he directed The Sixth Sense (also starring Willis) which was released to overwhelming acclaim, with many describing him as “the next Spielberg.”
There was no way this couldn’t go to his head and the films he started to release were received with scorn and laughter. The twist endings of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable had become so ingrained that all of his films had to have twists, each sillier than the last, culminating in “IT WAS THE PLANTS THE WHOLE TIME!!!”
The Happening (released in 2008) was supposed to be his big comeback and was marketed to hell and back resulting in a highly successful box performance, but what was supposed to be a psychological-horror film turned out to be an unintentional comedy, not unlike The Room. If you haven’t seen it, I highly advise that you get a group of friends to sit down and watch it. You can thank me later.
Here is a little teaser, just keep in mind that this was supposedly pants-wettingly terrifying.
After that, he released The Last Airbender and After Earth, both of which were so poorly received that his name had become mud in the industry.
He would later make a found footage film called The Visit which earned nearly $100 million against a $5 million budget and received good reviews but, for many, the damage done to his reputation was too extensive for a comeback to the days of old.
But, like his movies, there was a twist still waiting to come.
The trailer for Split was as delightfully tense and creepy as you could hope for in a horror movie, also showing off James McAvoy’s acting chops as he plays a man with twenty-three separate personalities, but the stink of Shyamalan’s name was so great that many dismissed the film on that alone.
The film had its premiere at the Fantastic Fest Film Festival about four months before its wide release, and something truly bizarre happened:
It received really good reviews.
All the critics were singing its praises and talking about that twist. They wouldn’t tell us what it was, but they would say it was a big one.
The film is tense and expertly shot, a brilliant throwback to the early days of Shyamalan’s career. Beautiful tracking shots, brilliant use of light and dark, and with some of the best performances I have seen in a horror film. It goes without saying at this point, that McAvoy is amazing in this. He goes from personality to personality seamlessly and, just through the power of his acting, the audience can easily tell which identity he is simply by expression and tone of voice.
Anya Taylor-Joy is also amazing in this. While McAvoy deserves all the praise he gets for his performance, a lot of people seem to overlook Taylor-Joy, which is practically criminal. She injects the film with humanity. While her character, Casey Cooke, is a strong person, she has still been abducted by a madman for a malevolent purpose and would naturally be terrified. She balances the performance between strength and terror, and she makes it look easy.
However, as good as the film is, it doesn’t appear to be different than what was promised by the trailer. But at literally the last second, it drops the curtain and makes the grand reveal.
Hearing about the abduction on the news, McAvoy’s character dubbed the Horde, a woman says, “This is like that crazy guy in the wheelchair that they put away fifteen years ago. And they gave him a funny name too... What was it?” The camera pans down to the man next to her, David Dunn, who replies, “Mr. Glass.”
Split was a sequel to Unbreakable all along!
What a twist!
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