DISAPPOINTING: Glass fails to live up to the hype as the sequel to two of M. Night Shyamalan’s greatest films.
By Micah Pierce, Staff Writer
Fans of the movies Unbreakable and Split may be let down by Shyamalan’s latest film, Glass. The movie is unsuccessful in its endeavor to bring together two tangentially related movie universes due to most of the runtime being devoted to a therapist trying to convince superpowered people that they are not, in fact, superpowered. The film starts off by giving the audience a dull and uninspired fight scene between David Dunn (Bruce Willis), the invincible protagonist of Unbreakable, and “The Horde”(James McAvoy), the antagonist of Split who has 24 different personalities. One of these personalities, known as “The Beast,” bestows the Horde with monstrous abilities. As their battle comes to an end, the duo is captured by the authorities and shuttled off to a mental institution. This institution also houses Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), Mr. Glass and the antagonist of Unbreakable, and is overseen by Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), the therapist manipulating the superpowered trio.
During the characters’ stay at the mental hospital, Shyamalan manages to hit every beat more than once. Ellie Staple gives the same speech to the superhumans multiple times, and a segment with a bright light that forces the Horde to change personalities seems to go on endlessly. Shyamalan is set on retelling each of the superhumans’ backstories, so much so that it takes away from the original plot. He goes so far as to reuse old footage from Unbreakable and Split, as if 90 percent of the people watching Glass haven’t already seen both films. As Shyamalan is so well known for his twist endings, he focuses too much on building up the twist at the end of Glass, while failing to make the first two hours of the film all that interesting.
Despite Glass’s extremely mixed reviews, it still won big at the box office. It opened as number one in the box office with 40 million dollars, and so far has grossed 95 million dollars worldwide. Some parts of the film work, and there are glimpses of the crazily ambitious movie Glass was expected to be. Many of these moments are thanks to McAvoy, who once again plays a phenomenal Beast. There are enough redeemable moments and ambitious ideas in the film to make the idea of completely dismissing the film unthinkable, however, Shyamalan fails to make these moments and ideas come together, resulting in a sloppy though occasionally entertaining sequel.