GLASS Review: M. Night Shyamalan's Tense Trilogy Capper Is Bound To Be Divisive
Eighteen years after Unbreakable hit theaters, M. Night Shyamalan delivers the final installment of a trilogy nobody ever believed would see the light of day. Does Glass live up to the high expectations?
M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable is still widely considered to be one of the best superhero movies ever made that wasn't based on any existing source material, and while Split was not initially marketed as a follow-up, it brilliantly expanded on the universe and set the stage for a final installment that would bring the main players together for what promised to be an epic conclusion to the story.
Does Glass live up to those lofty expectations?
The story picks up a few weeks after the events of Split, with David Dunn (Bruce Willis) attempting to track down Kevin Wendell Crumb, a.k.a. "The Horde" (James McAvoy), and put an end to his killing spree. Dunn, who is now known as The Overseer, is aided by his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), who gets a lead on Crumb's whereabouts. After a brutal confrontation, both men wind up in the same psychiatric facility as Dunn's old adversary Elijah Price, a.k.a. Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), who is heavily sedated. There, Dr. Staple (Sarah Paulson) tries to convince them that their superhuman abilities are simply a delusion, and asks Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy) to help her reach Crumb's more passive personalities.
Willis and Jackson are both on form here, but McAvoy is the standout, once again delivering a superb performance as a tragic, but sometimes terrifying villain. At one point, Crumb switches between about 10 of his personalities, and it's easy to believe that they are all completely different characters. Taylor-Joy also makes an impression as the returning Casey, and her scenes with McAvoy are among the most powerful.
While Glass does serve as a follow-up to both previous films, from a tonal standpoint it is definitely more of a direct sequel to Unbreakable. Shyamalan continues the exploration of comic book mythology he began in that first movie, and the concept that this literature is actually based on real-life human history becomes a major part of the narrative - to the film's detriment, ultimately.
To fully explain why would take us too close to spoiler territory, but let's just say that Shyamalan allows his penchant for credibility-stretching coincidence and one-the-nose dialogue to get the better of him by the end of the movie. The conclusion is undoubtedly tense and exciting, but it's robbed of some of its power when characters begin to shout plot developments at each other minutes after the audience has already figured out what's going on.
Do we get that trademark twist? You won't find out here - but the movie's ending will undoubtedly divide opinion.
Glass gets off to a terrific start, but it simply fails to stick the landing. It's still an enjoyable movie overall and is certainly not bad any means, but as a conclusion to this particular trilogy, it is a little underwhelming.