ANYONE wanting to start the M Night Shyamalan backlash will have to wait a little longer.

The eagerly awaited follow-up to The Sixth Sense is every bit as good as you would expect from the young film-maker who so successfully messed with our expectations in last year's supernatural chiller.

Bruce Willis (for it is he!) stars as David Dunn, the sole survivor of an horrific train crash in which 131 people are killed. More than that, he walks out of it completely unscathed.

After the memorial service for the victims, he finds a cryptic message on his car windscreen and traces its author to a bizarre man called Elijah Price (Samuel L Jackson) who runs an art gallery specialising in comic book drawings. Price, who suffers from a debilitating illness that has rendered his bones unimaginably fragile, offers an incredible explanation as to why Dunn survived unscathed. In essence, Elijah believes David is a contemporary version of a classic comic book superhero. He cannot be hurt.

Needless to say, David rejects the notion out of hand, as does his wife Audrey (Robin Wright Penn) when she too meets with Elijah. But their son Joseph (played by the impressive Spencer Treat Clark) is quite happy to believe his dad - who appears to have the weight of the world on his shoulders - really is a superhero.

It's a downbeat but undeniably involving story. The look is dark and edgy and many of Shyamalan's camera angles and shot compositions offer comic book-style perspectives. Gradually, from out of the murk, the magnitude of what Price has told him begins to dawn on Dunn.

As if studiously considered cinematography and expertly rendered direction aren't enough, Shyamalan's script is also perfectly controlled. The story is beautifully paced, letting us run with the idea, then pulling us back a little, offering some very black humour and moments of extreme tension - try to watch the scene where Joseph points a gun at his father without clenching your every muscle.

Sure, the movie buffs and Sixth Sense obsessives will find plenty of material in Unbreakable with which to massage their fixations, but the film works equally well - if not better - as a superb piece of entertainment. It more than rewards a little thought and concentration, while Willis and Jackson deliver exemplary performances.

Oh, and those expecting a Sixth Sense-style killer twist will just have to wait and see.