Glass review

[Westside Steve]

Glass 
Universal
Pg-13.                 129 min
Split
Universal
Pg-13.                  117 min

A little background gang. A few years ago one of my least favorite directors M Night Shyamalan began what was to be a trilogy with a film called UNBREAKABLE. For the record I don’t completely disregard this guy because THE SIXTH SENSE was kind of a groundbreaking film. Everything beyond that has been hackery in my opinion but what the heck. It’s a bit like the boy who cried wolf. After SIXTH you know that every film he makes is going to have some big twist ending so the audience is just hardwired to disbelieve anything that comes before it. I saw UNBREAKABLE way back when and was not impressed. So when the sequel SPLIT came out I didn’t bother. Flash forward now the third and final chapter GLASS hits the theaters and opens as the number one film at least of the week. I did roll the dice on it and then felt guilty about doing a review without the benefit I’ve seen all three chapters. So I bit the bullet and gave Amazon Prime their inflated price and watched SPLIT this morning. Frankly it didn’t really tee up GLASS but there was a reference or two whether or not it made much sense at the time. Frankly I think people that are looking for a connection among the three films are hoping for more depth than there actually is. I actually thought SPLIT was a more enjoyable film than GLASS even though it’s not particularly groundbreaking. It combines the old movie plot of crazy serial abductor kidnapping girls and keeping them at a remote location. Adding to that plot is the fact that the antagonist here is actually at least 24 antagonists, manifested by the 24 separate identities trapped in the head of James McAvoy. Just to make it easier from here on I’m going to call him Kevin, the nine-year-old entity. On top of that according to psychological theory real or made up for the film there are cases of split personalities with different blood types allergies Etc, all within the same body. At any rate all these identities are very different and each will come to talk to or torment the trapped girls at the film goes along. Unfortunately I had already seen GLASS so I know that he doesn’t get killed at the end of SPLIT (Though I don’t trust Shyamalan not to pull a FRIDAY THE 13th ending out of his, uh, hat.)
Flash forward a few years and the film GLASSES opens up with Bruce Willis, the star of UNBREAKABLE, returning to his David Dunn character as a vigilante dedicating to finding Kevin and rescuing the new menagerie of girls.  A third-party here is Elijah Price Samuel L Jackson as the brittle boned wheelchair boundd and seemingly catatonic mastermind. Rather than being a straightforward action suspense thriller GLASS is more convoluted, two hours of nonsense loosely framed Within the idea that all three of these strange people are somehow superheroes, and like many superheroes ke know all have a specific weakness. Superman has Kryptonite Elijah has brittle bones David Dunn has water and Kevin flips out at the sight of flashing lights. Make sense? Nah not to me either.  In an ending more puzzling than climactic the story floats the idea that maybe the world isn’t quite ready for people with special abilities, IE superheroes. And idea possibly lifted from the graphic novel Marshall Law.
Since GLASS open up is the number one film in the nation I’m guessing there are plenty of fans who think there is a deep and compelling meaning to all this stuff. I think it’s just weird for the sake of being weird but as always your mileage may differ.
I will, however, add that none of this gets off the ground without the spectacular performance of James McAvoy in both films, and they are probably at least worth seeing just for that. Even more impressive the guy is Scottish.
I give SPLIT a C+  and GLASS a D+. You are on your own.
WSS