2002 is where it began with the release of Unbreakable, a superhero film that over time has become quite a highly regarded film and not just within its genre. Looking back at it, it's popularity continues to grow to an all-time high, and it was clearly ahead of its time.
But as Shyamalan's stature and reputation slowly freefalled with the releases of devisive The Village, the disappointing The Lady In The Water, the trashy and yet guilty pleasure favourite of The Happening, the pretty bad The Last Airbender and the massively unremarkable After Earth, people had labelled Shyamalan as a hasbin and someone who has massively lost his touch.
But after the release of low budget horror The Visit, Shyamalan gave us hope that going back to a grounded story with a basic budget may be a good call in seeing going back to his roots.
Then came the release of Split just over a couple of years ago. It was getting strong reviews, but we never released how important this film would be to an underrated favourite until the very final scene. With Split not only being a very good film, it ended up being a surprise sequel to Unbreakable.
The huge success of this has now rightfully given us a final installment where all of our major characters collide.
It starts off well, gives us some nice reminders from Unbreakable and sets us up nicely for seeing all three of our major characters collide.
Once that happens, sparks of terrific film-making start to happen. That is mainly thanks to James McAvoy who manages to enhance his efforts in Split with a mesmorising display of variety and making so seamless and most importantly, believable.
Then as the twists and turns start to happen we get a pretty strong finale and a satisfying conclusion that never forgot its roots and utilised well in concluding the story.
Unlike the general consensus of the critics, the fans seem to be giving Shyamalan the deserved love to this finale of what is probably one of the strongest trilogies in quite some time. I say quite some time, because trilogies that feel like trilogies don't get made in this age of franchises, spin-offs and prequels etc. The only exceptions look to be The Dark Knight, Planet Of The Apes and How To Train Your Dragon.
The action was thrilling, the tension mounted beautifully, James McAvoy continues to show how much he loves playing this character. Playing a character with multiple personalities must be an actors dream, and McAvoy capitalises on this chance beautifully with what could be better then his original outing in Split. Samuel L. Jackson made me forget how good he was in Unbreakable and slipped back into his character shoes with ease. As for Bruce Willis, it's a rarity to find a memorable Willis performance in the last 10 years and I can now add this.
You can feel his dedication to the material he was given to him, and I was so happy to see Willis contribute to the cause with such energy and positivity.
I really enjoyed this and I cannot wait to watch this again and make a marathon of this trilogy. It's certainly been a while since I have been excited for another Shyamalan project.
Rating: 8/10
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