Glass Swings Hard But Shatters Itself
My fellow Geek Warriors. I wanted so badly to like this movie. I gave it all the passes I could. I mean, I love Samuel L. Jackson. I love Bruce Willis. I think James McAvoy is a brilliant actor. I remember when 6th sense came out and I thought M. Night Shyamalan was a twisted genius. Unbreakable is in my top 10 movies of all time! I really really really wanted this to be a good movie!
The problem is; it is not a good movie.
I mean that in a very technical sense. It tries to be something that it is just not. Movies have a structure to them, just like plays, sit-coms, graphic novels, books, and live performances have a unique structure. Glass suffers greatly from the Director trying to make this movie a symphony of Comic Book tropes without the substance for a symphony. It drags in parts that end up being set ups for throwaway lines. It focuses in on characters that have no business being in the movie at all. Its “twist” ending is such a let down that it is like a magician who did a lame magic show is coming out for a curtain call bow, but the audience has already stood up and is politely leaving the theater.
In general, Glass is the 3rd and final installment of a trilogy that seems thrown together from two stand alone movies (Unbreakable and Split), connected only by a bonus scene at the end of Split. Glass is the final chapter where we see Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) being the mastermind brilliant criminal who wants to prove that he is one of the characters that his beloved comic books are referencing and not a birth defect. Which, oddly enough is the same goddam thing he was after in Unbreakable!
Glass has a couple of shining moments. I loved that they brought Joseph Dunn back to reprise his role as David Dunn’s son from Unbreakable. I liked that we get to see more of Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) from Split. The acting chops of Samuel L. Jackson and James McAvoy are evident in this film. There are even a handful of scenes that give you false hope and make you think the movie is going to get on track.
I truly hope this movie is a lesson for filmmakers everywhere. You don’t have to make a MCU Infinity War. A movie doesn’t have to have the timeless history of characters like the Rocky series. You don’t have to put a twist at the end of every movie. You really just have to follow the thread of the characters that you have created and make a fun movie highlighting what made them awesome in the first place.
It was so telling for me that the movie ends and the visuals you are treated to during the post credits are stills from the past two movies. It is as if this movie coming out over a decade after Unbreakable was supposed to be the standing ovation moment for these characters. Looking at these stills made me sad because I remember those scenes from those other movies and missed them. Those were the characters and the intrigue that I came to see. I did not come to see the same characters grappling with the same question of “am I extraordinary?” that they had already dealt with in previous movies and come to the answer of “Hell Yeah I am!”.
Finally, I want to say that if the movie is called Glass, it should be mostly about that character. I was so pissed that we see Mr. Glass on screen for less than 15 minutes of this movie! Samuel L. Jackson has maybe 20 lines spoken! I went to the theater to see more of Mr. Glass. What I got was M. Night Shyamalan trying too hard to make a movie that was too complicated, convoluted, and too full of itself to be fun to watch.
About The Author
Gus Davis is a Producer, Game Show Host, Magician, and the official Geek Gus@GusDavis.com.
