Review of Glass (2019) by Jack W — 20 Jan 2019

From what I hear, this is one of those really polarizing movies with some people really liking it and some not. I came into Glass a little cautious, but I was surprised to find out how MUCH I liked this.

I just found the whole world of this so fascinating. Some people don't like that a lot of this is talking, but this is an M. Night Shamyalan movie and considering Unbreakable had a lot of talking, I wasn't surprised. (Action fans shouldn't be too worried. There are two major fight scenes, and they are both pretty good, especially the first one.) The whole film focuses on characters like Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) arguing for the existence of real life superheroes and the psychiatrist (Sarah Paulson) providing plausible arguments why they don't exist. Yeah, this rehashes concepts from Unbreakable, but I still found the ideas and dialogue to all be really interesting.

There is one thing they do near the end that rubbed me the wrong way, but then they quickly followed up with something I found so satisfying that I quickly forgave.

The third act is a little rushed, including one character's jump to a conclusion a little hard to swallow. Also, some of Mr. Glass' obvious comparisons to comic books sometime feel like Shamyalan is talking down to the audience. Still, it wasn't enough to take me from the film.

Also, this is a serious film but it does have some pretty good funny bits to lighten the mood.

Mr. Glass, the wheelchair-bound genius with brittle bone disease, and the Horde (played by James McAvoy), a serial killer with multiple personalities with different moral leanings, are still fascinating characters. Yeah, they've both done monstrous things and yet the movie still makes you feel for them. Jackson nails every scene, and it's pretty impressive how many characters McAvoy are able to shift between. (However, since they are revealing more personalities here, it seems like McAvoy was running out of ideas for voices.).

Unfortunately, Bruce Willis' superhero David Dunn gets short shrift here. He gets a good introduction, but once the second act kicks in they do very little with him, and I felt like the ending didn't do him justice.

Heard a lot of people complain about the psychiatrist being too talky, but I didn't see any issues. I liked that she didn't fall into frustrating movie psychiatrist tropes, by being well-meaning but totally incompetent and clueless or being an uncaring jerk. All three of the exceptional people have a supporting character on the outside who all really work well and again the actors do great work.

Say what you will about Shamyalan's writing style, but he has an excellent sense of visuals. He really pulls you in, which helped me be less bothered by any little stumbles in the plot. It is so nice to see a director who knows that you can shoot a scene at night and still have color and see what is going on.

I admit that many people could be bothered by the ending more than me. Seeing this could be a gamble, but if you were a fan of Unbreakable and Split, I suggest you take your chances on this.