Glass (2019)
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Glass Movie Review
Glass is a 2019 superhero thriller film directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Sarah Poulson and Samuel L. Jackson. It’s a mess of a film.
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“First name: Mister.
Last name: Glass“
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This is a love it or hate it experiment as evidenced by the reactions of people and critics out there. Some despise it and some find it very entertaining. I am in the middle per usual. I find it not bad, but certainly not particularly good either. It’s right there in the middle, but needless to say much weaker than ‘Split’ which remains the obvious highlight of the trilogy with both ‘Unbreakable’ and Glass being much below it.
So first of all, this movie has two very distinct halves. One is good, the other one is bad. The first half is the good one as it features a very strong build-up, atmosphere and dialogue. It almost plays out like a psychological drama with almost no superhero action or thriller elements whatsoever and I really liked that. I liked every discussion and conversation with the patients and it was all very well done and quite entertaining.
But then the movie shifts gears and becomes sort of a parody of itself. It’s an odd flick which definitely felt that it would go bad from the first moment as no matter how good the first half was, it felt aimless and I knew that it was to become bad which is exactly what it eventually happened. Although I absolutely loved the ending itself and the idea behind this was superb for sure, the execution was so bad that it ruined it for me.
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Because it turns out superheroes are real and they aren’t crazy, the budgetary restraints then really affected the movie badly as the fights are absolutely horrible. A lot of throwing around and not much else to be seen here which was all because of a small budget. I felt as if I was watching wrestlers and not real super humans. Couple that with the beast’s cringy lines and behavior as well as those very annoying comic-book commentaries from Glass and you’ve got one misguided, unintentionally comedic and parodist second half that simply did not work.
James McAvoy once again kills it in the role of many roles. As the Beast he was horrible, but he was excellent as pretty much everybody else and very believable. I was once again impressed with his acting abilities and he continues to be an underrated actor.
Samuel L. Jackson’s Glass being the mastermind was excellent, but him commenting on the comic-books really bothered me as it was stupid, geeky and very silly. David Dunn himself is very disappointing even though Bruce Willis was good in the role. His costume looked cheap as if it was made for Comic-Con and he just felt very weak physically to me.
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Sarah Poulson was excellent in the finest role of the film. I loved the twist with her and she really made this movie her own. But Anya Taylor-Joy was wasted and both her and the other two family members of the patients felt tacked in the film just for that ending to work. Really unnecessary. The film’s pacing is otherwise solid, it’s fun to watch throughout, but again the dialogue is questionable and the direction from Shyamalan is expectedly very problematic.
Glass is a mess of a film. It’s a movie you either hate or love, but to me it turned out as a mixed bag. The first half was so good that it was obvious that Shyamalan would not manage to retain that quality throughout. The dialogue was good there, I liked its psychological drama approach and the acting was strong across the board with Sarah Poulson and James McAvoy being the standouts. But the second half ruined all of that as even though the idea behind it and the end itself was good, the execution was horrible with terrible action scenes owing to budgetary restraints, questionable dialogue and an overly silly and parodist comic-book approach.
