Nineteen years, if you can believe it, have passed since M Night Shyamalan’s best film Unbreakable hit cinema screens and in that time, sequels were promised and never materialised.
In 2016 though Shyamalan pulled the rug out from everyone and in an awesome twist ending revealed that Split was in fact set in the same universe and was essentially a setup for the final act in his long promised super hero trilogy.
Which brings us neatly to Glass. Picking up soon after the events of Split we see David Dunn (Bruce Willis) on the tail of The Horde (James McAvoy) as he tries to prevent any more girls being abducted and fed to The Beast (if you’re confused at this point, it’s fair to say that Split really is essential viewing before even consider watching Glass).
Dunn manages to save the girls but before his fight with The Horde is over they are interrupted by a team of armed men and a psychiatrist (Sarah Paulson) who claims she can treat people with delusions of superpowers and incarcerated in a secure institution alongside a familiar face in Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson).
Split was seen widely as something of a return to form for Shyamalan after years of pretty poor films so it’s no surprise that The Horde features so prominently here, McAvoy’s performance as the multiple personalities is undoubtedly entertaining but with Split being so recent it seems like a bizarre choice to focus the majority of the first half of the film on his character. What people really wanted to see is the return of Jackson’s excellent villain (the film is called “Glass” after all), but what we get is him highly sedated for most of the film and actually given very little to work with.
The same can be said for the David Dunn character; although in the early stages it seems like he could be the film’s focus, he is quickly side-lined and the film shifts to focusing on The Horde. The lack of screen time for both characters really is disappointing when you consider that people have waited 19 years for this sequel!
It’s not all bad news though, the group therapy session with all three of the key players is well handled and the film should be applauded for being a more grounded take on the mythos of superheroes and it does a half decent job of deconstructing and rationalising their abilities, even if it then goes on to prove that they do in fact have super powers, nonetheless its one of the film’s more interesting scenes.
L-R: Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy and Bruce Willis reprise their past roles to finish off M Night Shyamalan’s superhero trilogy.
Now at this point you’re thinking, this is a Shyamalan film there must be a plot twist. No spoilers here but there is more than one; one works and one doesn’t, unfortunately the film closes on a bizarre plot point that really should have been introduced earlier in the series but it wasn’t and you are left with a somewhat unsatisfying ending to a somewhat unwieldy trilogy.
Author: Paul, Bath store
