Movie Review: Glass

Well, here it is everyone. (Finally.)

My thoughts on the final installment of writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's strange real-world superhero trilogy. Starting with Unbreakable and continuing with Split, the beginning of this year saw the conclusion to the story of Elijah Prince, David Dunn and Kevin Wendell Crumb.

And to a number of film critics and viewers, it's been a kind of contentious ending. In fact, for some, it's a deal-breaker that takes Shyamalan back to his derided "what a twist!" roots.

Do I think so?

Let's dive into the story of Glass and see.

Glass begins in the aftermath of the previous film, Split with Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) on the loose in Philadelphia. A man with 23 separate personalities, Kevin's body is currently under the control of three major ones: the silky and manipulative Patricia, cold and stoic Dennis, and the goofy/creepy childish Hedwig. The three of them (dubbed "The Horde") believe in a malevolent 24th personality, "The Beast," who is a sociopathic cannibal that is outrageously strong and possesses other astounding abilities. The Horde have been kidnapping people for The Beast to devour as sacrifices, most recently a group of cheerleaders.

At the same time as this is going on, David Dunn (Bruce Willis) continues his life. A former security guard who, nineteen years ago, miraculously survived a devastating train crash without a single scratch, David currently runs a store with his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) by day... and at night, he goes out as a vigilante, helped by Joseph acting as his mission control. Believing himself to be superhumanly strong and durable, able to see a person's worst deed by a single touch, David - or as he's been nicknamed by an online group, "The Overseer" - soon ends up hunting for Kevin, and in the midst of freeing The Beast's would-be victims, ends up in a fight with The Beast himself.

David and The Beast's brawl spills out into the street, whereupon they are confronted by a large force of policemen. The Beast is subdued by a device that flashes bright hypnotic lights, forcing him to switch personalities. David is persuaded to surrender by Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), a psychiatrist present with the police. David and Kevin are both arrested, and sent to Raven Hill Sanitarium, a mental hospital for the criminally insane.

Also held at Raven Hill is Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), aka "Mr. Glass". Born with 'brittle bone disease' and obsessed with comic books and their superhero and villain characters, Elijah had orchestrated a number of catastrophic "accidents" in the effort of finding and creating a real superhero. David had him arrested back at the end of Unbreakable and Elijah's been in the asylum ever since.

Dr. Staple meets with David, Kevin and Elijah individually, with the intent of curing them of their belief in superheroes and their special powers. She tells David that she has three days to make her case, otherwise if they persist in their beliefs then they will be turned over to trial. Dr. Staple's specialty is in dealing with patients who have "delusions" of possessing superhuman power, and she does her best to grind down David and The Horde's faith in their abilities.

David's apparent psychic ability to read people? Just that he has a special talent for reading microexpressions and other cues of body language. His "weakness" being water? Lingering trauma from an incident where he nearly drowned as a kid - and the train accident he survived damaged his brain and he dealt with the trauma by believing he couldn't be hurt.

"The Beast" being able to bend steel and shrug off a shotgun blast? The bars on the cage were old and rusting, and the shotgun shells were improperly stored, rendering them near-useless.

Both David, and Kevin's personalities, are shaken by Staple's analysis of them, and each of them grapple with the crisis of faith with who they are.

While all of this is going on, Joseph - along with Casey Cooke (Anya-Taylor Joy), returning from Split - and Elijah's mother Mrs. Price (Charlayne Woodard) - all pay visit to the mental hospital to try and help their associates. Joseph's faith in his father is rattled after a talk with Dr. Staple, and Casey tries to reach out to Kevin... and poor Mrs. Price urges her son, despondent and thoroughly doped up by orderlies, not to give up.

It looks bleak for all of our major characters... But then, this is the moment where Mr. Glass fully comes into the picture.

Elijah breaks out of his cell at night, and meets with The Horde. Revealing that he has been faking his sedated/depressed state (swapping out his meds with aspirin), and that he has a plan to break them all out the next night. Elijah persuades The Beast to assist him with his plan - a scheme which will reveal their superhuman nature to the world, by having The Beast battle David at the unveiling of a new high-rise tower in the city.

Despite Dr. Staple's efforts to suppress Elijah's plan, he outwits her, and The Beast and Mr. Glass are on their way to freedom... and it looks like only David Dunn / The Overseer can stop them...

To say any more of the plot would spoil everything. Let's just say that the climax of the film does contain a revelation that is a massive subversion of expectations, and while I understand some of the criticisms made of the plot twist here (especially in regard to the fates of some characters) I personally on second thought found that it made enough sense and worked with a plot point in the original Unbreakable movie - and brought up earlier in this movie too. Ask yourself, if superhumans really do exist in this world, then why are the major examples only David and Kevin/The Beast? Keep THAT in mind when you watch this movie, is all I'll say...

Glass, like Unbreakable and Split before it, is a very meticulous film. It's also a very busy movie, in large part due to the ensemble nature of its cast. This is a movie that juggles characters from Kevin and a number of his personalities - in particular Patricia, Hedwig, and the real Kevin - alongside others like David, Joseph, Casey, Elijah, Dr. Staple... a lot goes on in this movie with all these presences running around, and yet many of them get some good material or character arcs to work with. In particular with Casey Cooke and Kevin... there are some really excellent scenes involving the two of them, and the conclusion of Kevin's role in this film is an absolutely astounding display from James McAvoy, who once again delivers a superb performance in portraying the range of Kevin's various personalities and making them distinct from each other.

In some ways I wish that Glass did more with David Dunn's character, but that's not to say that Bruce Willis is underwhelming in this film. He gives some very good work, portraying a man who is clearly a good person and wants to do the right thing, but it also just bone-tired from the demands of the "work" he does. This adds a lot of pathos to his scenes with Dr. Staple, as her analysis of him clearly puts heavy strain on him, and on the bond he has with Joseph as well. Another standout moment from Willis that I was really impressed by involved David remembering his wife Audrey - who, it turns out, has passed away in the time between the movies. It's a short scene, but Bruce Willis' performance clearly conveys the impact that the loss has had on David and how lonely he is without her. In many ways this film really got across, in a way that some others haven't, the sheer burden of being a superhero-type character.

And as for Elijah Price / Mr. Glass himself... yet again, Samuel L. Jackson delivers a superb performance. It's especially impressive considering that most of his early scenes involve just staring despondently (and even with that, the camera work and Jackson's presence still had me waiting intently for the other shoe to drop), and yet when he unveils his plan to The Horde / The Beast, you're immediately hooked by Jackson's presence. Elijah has waited a very long time to see his plans for the world - to prove the existence of superhumans to the public, as much as anything else to give his life some meaning and prove that his painful existence wasn't just an accident - and he's clearly willing to do anything to achieve that end. It's clear, to make a call-back to Unbreakable, that while The Beast is the physically more powerful threat, that Mr. Glass IS in many ways the more dangerous one, because of his cunning and intellect. He is, truly, the mastermind.

I mentioned a bit with Casey Cooke before. I enjoyed Anya Taylor-Joy's performance and found it made for an interesting evolution of her character's path from Split. In some ways, I do wish we could have seen a bit more development done with here. But still, nothing against her, I quite liked her performance in this film. The same goes for Spencer Treat Clark as Joseph Dunn as well. In some ways he serves a bit of a comic relief purpose in the film (one scene in particular being when David wants to go out for "a walk" and Joseph tries to talk him out of it, in front of a customer who has no idea what the problem is XD), but even so he also gets some good dramatic material to work with, especially at the conclusion of the film. (Also, while she doesn't get as much to do, I still loved Charlayne Woodard as Mrs. Price.)

For my final note on the performers in this movie... Sarah Paulson delivers a solid, effective performance as Dr. Ellie Staple. She comes off as an eminently reasonable, even kind of sympathetic presence (I swear, one or two of the scenes where she talks to Kevin - the Hedwig personality in particular - she comes off as a rather maternal figure)... her arguments against the characters' belief in their superhuman abilities sound very logical and reasonable, enough so that you might even start to buy into them yourself. Then comes the finale of the movie, and suddenly the revelations concerning her character and her real goal make her a very sinister and despicable presence. Enough so that you might even root for Mr. Glass, honestly...

One last thing I'll say about Glass, is that while it's definitely a much more action-packed film than its predecessors (there's only one true fight scene in Unbreakable and Split is very much a thriller/horror movie) it's still very much a thriller movie instead of an out-and-out superhero movie. The fight scenes between David/Overseer and Kevin/The Beast are very well constructed affairs, being very realistic brawls that still make good use of the characters' superhuman powers (in particular is the first clash between the two at the abandoned factory) though again this film still makes much usage out of character, dialogue and atmosphere rather than action. This is still very much a thriller based around the idea of superheroes, rather than a true-blue superhero movie. Part of me is tempted to make a reference to Kingsman The Secret Service and say that if you expect Glass to be a typical superhero story... "well, this ain't that kind of movie bruv."

So, to conclude, I very much enjoyed Glass. I'd probably still rank it a bit behind Unbreakable in terms of sheer enjoyment factor, but this was still a very good and engaging movie for me, and one that ends on a very fascinating and open-ended note.

I definitely would say that this film and its predecessors are not for everyone, but for me, they proved an engaging and thoughtful experience, and one that showed me that M. Night Shyamalan does have legit talent as a director and writer.