UNBREAKABLE BROKE NEW GROUND?

Superman The Movie broke new ground, for the first time a superhero in spandex is visualised in a verisimilitude world. Innovative in its design and concept, Donner's Superman became the standard for the comic feature. Subsequent superhero pictures always look upto daddy.

Although Batman succeeds in continuing the verisimiltude concept, the origins of the hero are neglected for the most part.

X-Men was a pleasent return to a certain comic book standard, despite low budget and over-editing the picture, there are lot more ideas to enjoy. More money needs to be pumped into production for the sequels. The film doesn't break new ground in terms of storytelling, it sticks to the familiar comic book vision and brings back respectability to the genre.

I missed Unbreakable on its theatrical release, but I finally uncovered the picture on DVD. In my opinion, Unbreakable twists the comic book conventions into a new inovavtive style, it explores the origins of the superhero, not for 30 mins, not for 60 minutes, but 107 minutes! It's Superman The Movie's Smallville section expanded into a feature film!

The great thing about Unbreakable is that it uses the usual comic book traits, but it twists and hides them in the visual medium and storytelling. The director, who sometimes might border on pretentious, uses the panavision camera to produce a style of comic book storytelling to a new level. What makes Unbreakable so fresh the first time around is the slow building of its characters, it's not just about the hero, but his family, who we care for. The film is grounded in reality, we believe in the world of David Dunn. If we don't believe then the film doesn't work.

As I said already, Unbreakable features some of the comic book standard styles:

David Dunn's double initials (DD) echo the comic-book theme of the film. Many comic book characters have double initials, among them Reed Richards, J'Onn J'Onzz, Susan Storm, Bruce Banner, Wally West, Peter Parker and Lex Luthor. (Also, "Clark Kent" *sounds* like it has double initials.)

Real Marvel comics are shown throughout the movie. But DC comics are never seen, only imitated. The comic Elijah receives from his mother, "Active Comics," is a close facsimile of DC's "Action Comics."

Identified colour schemes, the hero is green and Elijah is purple.

Camera work simulated comic book frames in several scenes.

The hero has a weakness, Kryptonite in Superman, David Dunn has a fear of water!

Comic Books villains always have something odd about their physical appearance, Elijah has a strange hairstyle to make his head look big.

Unbreakable deserves viewing, it's the biggest step in the comic book genre since our very own Superman The Movie. No one can deny that the film has guts, that it tries to take a new direction in comic book storytelling yet still grounded in what makes a good comic book feature - the word we are looking for is verisimilitude! In years to come, Unbreakable will become an important film!

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