As a film, Unbreakable explores the role that myth has in our civilization, and specifically explores the way that humans use comic books to explore mythic dimensions of the real world. The film works on a second level, for within the film itself comic books are in a real sense man's last link to an ancient way of story-telling.

Unbreakable may have originally been planned as part of a trilogy, with subsequent films titled Breakable and Broken. These sequels seem to have been scrapped after a poor box office performance. In DVD commentary, Shyamalan himself claims he was in the process of writing a single movie using a comic-book three-part structure (the superhero's birth, their struggles against general evil-doers, and their ultimate battle against the "arch enemy"). However, he found the "birth" section far more interesting than the remainder and decided to base the entire movie around the idea.

Many have compared this film with The Sixth Sense because it shares the same writer and director, and star actor, has the same type of plot structure, and reveals a surprise ending.

Plot

Elijah Price is born with Type I Osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare disease in which the bones lack collagen of sufficient quality and/or quantity, and thus break very easily. He is even born with broken bones, as shown in the first scene of the movie, and later receives the nickname "Mr. Glass". He lives his life searching for a reason for his own existence. He theorizes that if he is at one end of a curve then perhaps there is somebody else quite opposite to him at the other end, someone with greater than usual strengths. Unfortunately he sets about finding this person by causing large scale "accidents" and looking for a sole survivor.

David Dunn is equally searching for a meaning to his life. He gave up a promising football career to be with the girl he loved, but even after their marriage and the birth of a son he still felt a hole - something was missing. After surviving a train wreck, he is contacted by Price and slowly begins to believe in Price's theory, that Dunn is in fact a modern day "super-hero." As Dunn begins to understand his purpose in the world, he begins to feel whole again and is able to renew his relationship with his wife and his son. In the final moments of the film, he discovers the disasters Price has caused in order to find someone who would miraculously survive. Price insists to Dunn that he performed these deeds only to find meaning in his life. Price tells Dunn that he now knows his place in the world, he exists to be Dunn's nemesis.

Comic book references

As in comic books, the main characters have their identified color schemes:
- David's clothes are green, and he is wearing a dark green hooded rain poncho on his first night out.
- Elijah's clothes are purple (a favorite color of Samuel L Jackson).
As in many comic books, the hero's first and last name alliterate (cf. Clark Kent, Bruce Banner, Peter Parker, Matt Murdock)
When Joseph watches the television news report on the train wreck, the station logo (an encircled "4"), vaguely resembles the logo for the Fantastic Four comic books.
The cover art for Elijah's first comic book is similar to that of Wolverine vs. Lobo.