Glass: Does It Shatter Expectations?

I remember when Split came out two years ago and I thought it was going to be garbage. The trailers didn't really do much for me and it didn't help that M. Night Shyamalan was directing (I never made it through The Last Airbender). To my surprise, Split was actually a great film with a fantastic performance by James McAvoy. It was also a secret sequel to another Shyamalan movie, Unbreakable, which I still have yet to watch. It was an incredibly clever move that put Shyamalan back on the map. He then announced that he was making Glass, which would tie all three together. Does it shatter expectations? That's what I'm here to tell you.

Glass is directed by M. Night Shyamalan and stars James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Paulson, and Anya Taylor-Joy. Security guard David Dunn (Willis) is on a mission to track down Kevin Wendell Crumb (McAvoy), a man who has over 20 different personalities. They are both taken to a psychiatric ward where Dr. Ellie Staple (Paulson) tries to convince them that they don't actually have superpowers. With all of that out of the way, let's dive into the review!

The answer to the title of this review is no, Glass does not shatter expectations. It is neither a great nor terrible film. It does have a lot of things that I love, though. The main thing to admire about this movie is the performances. Most of the cast does a great job. The two standouts are McAvoy and Jackson. McAvoy does a phenomenal job of switching personalities over the course of the movie. He expands what he did in Split, which is tough because he did a superb job in that film. I never felt like, ¨Oh that's James McAvoy just doing different accents.¨ Each personality felt like a unique character. In my opinion, he should've been nominated for an Oscar for both this film and Split. He's just too good. Jackson does a great job as Elijah Price a.k.a. Mr. Glass. Price has a disease that makes his bones extremely fragile. The slightest tap could shatter them. He is also a genius that is ahead of everyone in the room. Every time he's on screen, he just dominates the scene. When he's with McAvoy, it's even better. Sarah Paulson does a great job as Dr. Ellie Staple. There were times in the movie where she was starting to convince me that maybe these individuals didn't have powers. Willis does an awesome job as David Dunn a.k.a. the Overseer. He now lives his life as a vigilante, protecting people. It's really interesting. That's what this movie does well. It has a lot of extremely interesting concepts. A central concept of the film is Elijah's belief that comic books are essentially a reflection of reality. They are kind of like history books. It's a pretty interesting idea and I liked hearing him talk about how certain events in the movie mirror the plot structures of a comic. This is the most realistic superhero film I've seen. If you are going into expecting a CGI extravaganza, you're going to be disappointed. It's not an action film. When the action does happen, however, it's pretty cool. It's very rough and isn't very stylized. At the same time, it does feel like a superhero action scene. It's a very interesting balance. The score in the movie is also beautiful. There are several songs that play the make certain scenes pretty emotional. West Dylan Thordson did a great job. The movie is also very well-shot. The way Shyamalan uses colors to tell his story was really cool. Each character has a color that's associated with them: Dunn is green, Kevin is yellow, and Elijah is purple. It's a pretty movie to look at.

What's upsetting about this movie is that, sometimes, these interesting concepts Shyamalan introduces can get a bit repetitive. It feels like the movie is beating the audience over the head, saying, ¨Get it? We like comic books too!¨ Where the movie excels is getting to know the characters more. The film falls apart at other moments, however. In some scenes, things happen that don't have an explanation. I don't want to spoil what it is, but it kept bothering me. I don't know if it was something I missed or if Shyamalan didn't know how to explain it. For a movie called Glass, the character isn't in it as much as I thought. It becomes his movie in the second half. The first half is Dunn and Kevin's movie. Speaking of Dunn, he doesn't have a lot to do. Once him and Kevin are taken to the ward, he gets kind of side-lined until the last half-hour of the movie. If anything, this movie felt more like a sequel to Split than a finale to a trilogy. If there were to be main characters, they would have to be Kevin and Dr. Staple. It makes sense that Kevin would be the main character, but not so much Dr. Staple. Don't get me wrong, Paulson does a great job, but most of the movie she is doing the same thing over and over again: Trying to convince the three David, Kevin, and Elijah that they don't have superpowers. Like the comic book concept, it gets pretty repetitive. Another thing that really bothered me was the ending. Even though the movie was disjointed at parts, I was still enjoying it. The ending just frustrated me. It bothered me the most and I can't talk about it because I don't want to spoil anything. Again, it had an interesting concept, but the execution was just off.

Overall, Glass was an interesting beast of a movie (pun very much intended). The performances (particulalry McAvoy and Jackson) were great, the music was beautiful, it was well-shot and used colors effectively, the action was interesting to look at, and it had a lot of interesting ideas. What holds it back is that things happen without explanation, David Dunn doesn't have a lot to do, Glass doesn't do a lot until the last half of the movie, the ideas aren't well-executed, and the ending was a disappointment. Glass is by no means a bad movie. If you liked Split, then you should definitely go see it. It's a different type of superhero movie and I appreciate what it was trying to do. If I were to rate it, I'd give Glass a 7/10.