Review of Glass (2019) by Aravindasamy P — 22 Jan 2019
When M. Night Shyamalan's 2016 Split drew both critical acclaim and commercial success, a sequel was inevitable. Adding to the buzz was a rug-pulling end credits stinger that placed the split-personality thriller in the same universe as Shyamalan's 2000 hit Unbreakable.
The first half of Glass plays on the notion of world's colliding to entertaining effect; Bruce Willis' David Dunn (aka "The Overseer") hunting down James McAvoy's Kevin Crumb (a serial killer with 24 distinct personalities) in a traditional good-vs-evil showdown.
The trio is complete when Dunn and Crumb join Samuel L. Jackson's hyper-intelligent and physically fragile Elijah Price (aka Mr Glass) in a purpose built psychiatric ward, where the enigmatic Dr Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) seeks to understand their grandeur of delusions.
It's an exciting and interesting first hour in which McAvoy steals the show playing a wide range of enjoyable characters: the buttoned-up Patricia, the childish Hedwig, the flirty Jade and the monstrous Beast to name but a few.
Unfortunately the film takes one almighty nosedive at the halfway point and produces an hour of impossibly bad cinema that is at complete odds with the first half of the movie. The plot becomes ridiculously convoluted, winding down a meta-comic-book path that is so cheesy it's unintentionally funny, whilst supporting players - particularly Anya Taylor-Joy's Casey - are given developments that seem to go against character.
Disappointingly, the action climax that's built up throughout the entire final act never eventuates as promised, replaced with a sequence (essentially amounting to an underwhelming wrestle) that highlights the low budget.
It's also afflicted with the multiple-endings curse, proceedings dragged out unnecessarily as Shyamalan overestimates how much we care about these characters. Distilling his divisive, up-then-down career into a single film, Shymalan's Glass ends up a frustratingly weak affair despite it's relatively strong start.
This review of Glass (2019) was written by Aravindasamy P on 22 Jan 2019.
Glass has generally received positive reviews.
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