Damn. This movie is one scene short of the coveted DMR 12-pack. Luckily the scene is pretty short, and despite it jolting the viewer out of the ride a bit, one settles in again pretty quick. The reactions to this movie have been pretty polarized, for whatever reason. As you can tell from the rating and the following review, I'm one who enjoyed it quite a bit. It's definitely a strong follow-up to Shyamalan's previous film The Sixth Sense, continuing in the Serling-esque form of Twilight Zone kind of writing, taking very normal characters and throwing in an x-factor. For this film, the x-factor plays with the question, "If you were a superhero, how would you know it?" If this kind of subject matter don't exactly float your boat, do not let that stop you from seeing this movie. There's no fantastic, mutant powers or flying men in capes involved. It's not adapted from a comic book. It is the way the story is approached from the humanistic (and realistic) manner, and the style in which it is shot that makes this a fan-fucking-tastic movie.
The movie starts with the main character David (in a great Quaalude-induced performance by Bruce Willis) on a train, coming off as kind of a heel. But the train ends up in a wreck, he is the sole survivor, and our perceptions quickly change as we get to see the very personal situation with his family and job unfold. I'll leave it at that as far as the story is concerned, as it really is intriguing to watch the story unfold. The character Elijah is Samuel L. Jackson's best role aside from Pulp Fiction, and will really have you wondering what exactly is going on until the very last scene.
