Glass

This movie concludes the Eastrail 177 Trilogy just as it seems it was getting started. Shortly after the release of "Unbreakable", director M. Night Shyamalan dismissed the gossip about a possible trilogy. In an initial script version of that film though, the character of The Horde existed but his presence complicated the story and so he was written out. Some others may call "Split" the hoped-for sequel to "Unbreakable" but I call it a spinoff. I treat this franchise as a shared universe like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. "Thor" for example" is not a sequel to "Iron Man". The final scene in "Split" was not shown in preview screenings in order for Shyamalan to see if the film could work on its own. Once satisfied, he included the twist ending and did indeed take the audience (and me) by surprise. "Glass" is a sequel in the way that "Avengers" is a sequel to both "Iron Man" and "Thor" superhero movies. After seeing "Glass", I was entertained but not as much as I was hoping.

As the title suggests, Mr. Glass feels like the main character in this show even though The Horde gets the most screen time. With 24 personalities, that character requires the screen time but Mr. Glass is orchestrating the events of this movie (more so than in "Unbreakable"). The first film in the trilogy saw David as the protagonist while the second film featured The Horde. As the story progresses in "Glass", Mr. Glass takes over the spotlight from The Horde. I love the scene with the flashlight by the way. Because I didn't look too much into this film before seeing it in order to avoid spoilers, I wasn't expecting to see Casey. Her relationship with The Horde is quite fascinating. You saw this in "Split" as she accepts the DID in order to increase her chances of escape. I am glad that she is in a loving foster home during the story of "Glass". I had said in my review for "Split" that only one man can stop The Horde but it looks like I was wrong. Her inclusion in this sequel did not feel forced. One nice touch I saw was when The Horde becomes The Beast, it is only then that he has scars from being shot in the last movie. I also liked the use of footage from "Unbreakable". There was a deleted scene and a shot that was seamlessly extended to include a plot twist for "Glass". Speaking of that, this movie had three twists during the ending. The first (involving the shot from "Unbreakable" that was extended) was pretty easy to predict if you saw "Split" a second time. The second did answer some questions and the third provides some required resolution. The best part of the movie was the first half and that tends to hinder the entertainment value of any film. We honestly felt like the show was heading towards an ultimate showdown. Unfortunatly, Shyamalan kept promising something over the couse of the story and we ended up feeling cheated out of it.

I sort of wanted to see Bruce Willis more in this movie but his character's development is complete. Once we see what he and Joseph have been up to in the years following the events in "Unbreakable", the plot really belongs to The Horde and his manipulation by Mr. Glass. All the actors did their jobs well but I quite enjoyed James McAvoy and Samuel L. Jackson. In only the first seven months of 2019, Jackson will be appearing in four superhero movies with "Glass" being the first. Since the introduction of Mr. Glass in "Unbreakable" in 2000, Jackson has become a huge part of the superhero film genre by way of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and "The Incredibles" films. In fact, Mr. Glass comes across a lot like an evil Nick Fury. McAvoy himself has played a Marvel character in the X-men films. Sarah Paulson's best scene is her final shot in the film. While she was good in this movie, I liked her better in "12 Years a Slave". Spencer Treat Clark has continued acting since "Unbreakable" and that was nice to learn. While most people last saw him in either that film or in "Gladiator", he was more recently in Joss Whedon's "Much Ado About Nothing" and TV's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (I guess even he has a role in a Marvel property). M. Night Shyamalan's cameo as Jai confirms that his character was also the suspected drug dealer in "Unbreakable".

One might think that a film like "Glass" would be hard to make with Disney owning the rights to "Unbreakable". That issue it seems was resolved very easily with Universal distributing the movie domestically and Disney (by way of a subsidiary distributor) releasing the film internationally. With the trend of shared film universes making so much money these days, it seems that Shyamalan wanted a piece of the pie. The final result was a good film (better than what the critics said it was) but when you create an epic cliffhanger, you had better have a good follow up. All three films are equally good but lack in lasting value and have other minor flaws.

3.5 Stars out of 5