Fragile ‘Glass’ Handle With Care (Movie Review)
I can’t say I ever thought the day would come where we’d be living in a world in which an exists a sequel to 2000’s Unbreakable whether lone two of them. I knew there was always interest in the property, but given the downward spiral of M. Night Shayamalan’s career for awhile I never thought we’d see anything spectacular from him again. A movie he wrote in 2010 called Devil semi peaked my curiosity, but imagine my surprise when early reviews of 2016’s Split came with mentions of a tie-in to the Unbreakable universe. That news practically broke the Internet (I’m exaggerating) and even further Split was actually a really great film to boot. James McAvoy got robbed of an Academy nod for his exceptional performance, but I digress. More importantly M. Night was suddenly back! People were instantly in his corner and from the looks of it as we’re gathered here today the third film in the trilogy, Glass, was fast-tracked for our viewing pleasure.
Back in the day Unbreakable was billed as a comic book, superhero thriller film. So I suppose that would make Glass of the same superhero comic genre and bloodline. The latter mentioned title here is both directed and written by M. Night. Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Spencer Treat Clark and Charlayne Woodard reprise their Unbreakable roles, while James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy return as their Split characters. Sarah Paulson, Adam David Thompson and Luke Kirby round out the cast of Glass in brand new roles. What I learned recently was that a character utilized in Split was originally written for Unbreakable, but ultimately pulled from the script. So I guess that’s why we had to wait 16years to outfit the ending of Split within the Unbreakable narrative huh? Needless to say Split was an overwhelming success thus Glass was born and officially started on in 2017.
Now that we have all that history and housekeeping all the way let’s dive deeper into how Glass fits into the grand scheme of things here. Everyone remembers how Split ends, right? In Glass David Dunn (Willis) pursues Kevin Wendell Crumb’s (McAvoy) superhuman persona of The Beast (as seen in Split). The latter is up to what he does best…kidnapping young girls. Little do both these men know though is the fact that Elijah Price is in the mix too and he has a serious fetish for comic book stories. It should also be noted that Casey Cooke (Taylor-Joy) is alive and kicking in this film. Why is her name so important? Well it’s because she’s the only captive to have survived an encounter with The Beast (as seen in Split). By the way are you enjoying these generic comic book character names? Believe me the comic book themes don’t stop there.
For many folks Glass is one of their most anticipated films of 2019. Also, for these many folks I fear they will be severely disappointed. For me it was initially a struggle to stay awake within the film’s first hour. When explaining it to a friend later on he said to me “I heard it was just a lot of people sitting in chairs talking.” He’s not too far off. For many I feel Glass can be the cure for insomnia while others will truly geek out over the comic book mythology of it all. Actually that’s the best way to describe Glass. It’s an exercise in comic book theory and modern day superhero mythology, which dictates how everything “should” play out. M. Night does not let you forget that either. It gets to the point of almost being insulting at times, but I digress.
Glass is not a horrifically bad movie, but it’s less imaginative than what I thought it would be. I don’t believe it’s going to meet the wild expectations of the fans clamoring to see it. It tries to set up and promise a wild climax you never saw coming, but again here’s where the unimaginative statement comes in. Like last year’s Halloween reboot we have nothing special here. However, I’d take that any day over another disaster like Last Airbender or Village from M. Night. That’s why for me Glass is just above average score-wise. It’s definitely not the sequel I wanted to Split, but considering all things M. Night it could have been so much worse. Quiet honestly the whole thing just has a very low energy vibe to it all, but with just enough juice due to the likable characters to keep you invested (provided you didn’t initially doze off).
It’s these likable characters I speak of that ultimately allows Glass to swim and not sink. Samuel always brings his A-game and while the material for McAvoy isn’t as strong as what he had to work with in Split he’s still steals the show here with his multiple personalities. Unlike the fifth Die Hard film even Bruce Willis shows up for real in this third outing. I can’t fault him for anything here. The only odd character is that of Casey’s. She didn’t seem to fit. However, rest assured even she has a purpose as awkward as it all is. After we get out of all the talking chair sequences eventually some action does transpire, but ultimately its the convoluted weight of this comic book story forced upon us that makes the “glass” really fragile here. It’s not the most imaginative and strongest of resolves, but we do achieve finality here. Your mileage is going to completely vary here as a result. I honestly don’t know what I was expecting with Glass, but I feel this is a small step backwards for M. Night considering how strong Split was. The End.
Brian White
Owner/Writer/Reviewer/Editor, Dreamer, Producer, Agent of Love, Film Lover, Writer of Screenplays and a Devoted Apostle to all things Ford Mustangs (the real ones with V8's!). Some of my favorite films include FIGHT CLUB, MOULIN ROUGE, THE DARK KNIGHT, STAR WARS alongside television shows such as SEINFELD, 24, SANFORD & SON and even the often loathed in the geek community BIG BANG THEORY. Outside of my three lives I live I also enjoy spending time with my girlfriend and our three girls (of the furry kind).
