Review of Glass (2019) by 257Sand — 22 Jan 2019

After an hour of slow pacing, that has you on the edge of your seat, Glass delivers a rather superb turnover by presenting a payoff that will keep you smiling until the end credits roll. Leaving the merits of its predecessors aside, Glass succeeds in making you empathize with its supposedly "superhuman" cast along with the seemingly normal array of supporting characters. Impressive use of camerawork to appropriately frame the various states of each character without confusing the audience. The soundtrack felt right and was never blaring but also not silent enough to keep your feelings on the same string. James McAvoy continues with his impressive skillset of portraying the most amount of characters an actor has ever played. Each personality really did house a different person because of his acting. Samuel Jackson's performance gives a light-hearted tone to the film, a testament to his commitment to the "villain" role. Bruce Willis' continues his style of acting from 'Unbreakable', which in my opinion is the best use of him as an actor.

After a series of debacles with big-budgeted movies, returning to form IS the best path for Shyamalan. There were no flashy capes, big explosions or snarky one-liners as is the standard for superhero films nowadays and that's a good thing. The best thing even. What Shyamalan did to his way of approaching things can be seen in this film that gets closer to the heart even with various subtleties.

Shyamalan grounded himself like Glass was grounded in reality, and, more importantly, empathy. And in so doing, he's made a film that truly does shatter expectations like the paper-mache bones of the lovable titular character.