To this day, I’m one of those people who will tell you that Unbreakable is the best movie that M. Night Shyamalan has ever made. When looking at his history, that ended up not being all that difficult to accomplish, but it’s legitimately a good feature film. After so many years, I didn’t expect a pair of sequels in Split and Glass to follow it, but I was open to the possibilities. There were a lot of directions they could go, but I just wanted it to be good and deliver a valid payoff since it was being brought back to life.
In Glass, we find David Dunn (Bruce Willis) on the hunt for Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) and his twenty-three other personalities. On his quest bring down the tortured soul, the hero who’s been generating buzz of his own is not only presented with the tough task of stopping a deranged mind. He’s also about to be brought face to face with Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), the insanely brilliant and deadly mind he had locked away nearly two decades ago.
If and when you watch Glass, you will see what works and what doesn’t quite easily. In terms of its flaws, one of the first you’ll see comes in Shyamalan’s ability to create a balanced second act. Some of the content during this portion of the movie is exceptional, but the length of the act drags it down and will more than likely disappoint a good number of people.
While there are some necessary features included in this act help push things forward storywise, a lot of what we see during this time should have been removed completely. The reason for that is simply because this stuff isn’t needed at all. You could have eliminated all of the unnecessary additions and still had the exact same movie. Not only that, but you would obviously have delivered a much faster and smoother experience for viewers.
While the excess in the second act definitely does some damage, the main feature that was able to shine through in spite of it was the acting. Whether they had strong or weak material to work with, these guys manage to perform well throughout the entire picture. Because of the actors, I pretty much liked every character that we are able to meet. They basically took what they had and turned in some quality performances that will make you want to see more of them.
Unfortunately, since this is supposed to be the film that closes out a trilogy, I don’t think
I think how it all ends will also be problematic for a large number of people. I wasn’t too fond of it myself when I first saw it, but thinking it over made it more palatable and easier to accept Shyamalan’s decision to finish things the way he did. Although I would have preferred a different ending, what was chosen was actually kind of bold and does tie everything in the trilogy together. Because it fits and because it’s kind of brave to end things this way, I somewhat appreciate the way it concludes.
The problems with Glass are impossible to ignore and detrimental to the overall film. However, there are enough positive things going on that prevent the movie from failing completely in my opinion. The bottom line is, some people will disagree with me and leave with a completely negative view of what they just watched. I can understand that because the problems are obvious and there was so much more that could have been done with the characters, the story, and the circumstances these guys face.
Rating: PG-13
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast:
James McAvoy
Bruce Willis
Samuel L. Jackson
Anya Taylor-Joy
Sarah Paulson
Spencer Treat Clark
Charlayne Woodard
Film Length: 129 minutes
Release Date: January 18, 2019
Distributor: Universal Pictures
