Written and Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, James McAvoy, Sarah Paulson, Spencer Treat Clark
Glass is the exciting conclusion to the M. Night Shyamalan trilogy that started 19 years ago with Unbreakable and continued in 2016 with Split.
David Dunn (Bruce Willis) has an unusual gift. If he touches someone, he can feel evil deeds they’ve done. David works with his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) at their security company, but he has a secret side business. He is a vigilante warrior, The Overseer, who tracks bad guys and saves crime victims. David wears his green poncho and goes for walks, while communicating with Joseph who stays at home base. He has to be careful though, because he is wanted by the police.
Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) has been a patient at Raven Hill Memorial Psychiatric Research Hospital since David discovered his nefarious plot at the end of Unbreakable. Stricken with a rare brittle bone disease and outwardly a shell of his former self, he mostly stays in his wheelchair. His mother (Charlayne Woodard) visits with him mostly every week, but even she can’t seem to get him to acknowledge her. He just sits there, staring.
Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), also Patricia, Dennis, Hedwig, Barry, Jade, Orwell, Heinrich, Norma, The Beast, and fifteen other personalities (all collectively known as The Horde) kidnaps girls and feeds them to his most sinister personality, The Beast. The Beast is an amalgamation of animals from the zoo that he used to work at.
When Glass begins, David Dunn is tracking Crumb, because he’s kidnapped four cheerleaders. David and Joseph have a rough estimate of where Crumb and the girls might be, and one afternoon, David finds them. The girls are rescued, a fight ensues between The Overseer and The Beast, the authorities arrive, and they are both sent to join David’s old friend Elijah at Raven Hill Memorial Psychiatric Research Hospital where they meet Dr. Staple.
Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) is new to this trilogy. She’s a psychiatrist who specializes in a specific type of delusion of grandeur: people who believe they are comic-book characters. I would say that’s really specific, because I don’t think a lot of people go around making that claim (in public at least). She seemed to just appear out of nowhere, in the right place at the right time.
When Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy) discovers that Kevin has been captured, she is relieved. Casey was the one victim that escaped from The Beast, but she seemed to have a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, because she was compelled to visit him at the hospital. Dr. Staple pleads for Casey to help her in her mission, but Casey declines. She just can’t seem to stay away from Kevin though.
Dr. Staple works with Dunn, Price, and Crumb to convince them that everything that they believe is superheroic about them, is nothing more than just a coincidence. She has several methods, from group therapy sessions to intricate systems, to keep each of them controlled.
Obviously, something happens, because then otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie. I won’t reveal anything else, but just sit back and enjoy the chain of events that unfolds. Of course there was a twist. Then there was another one (surprised Pikachu meme) which then turned Glass into kind of ridiculous territory (almost American Horror Story-like). I would have been happy if they stopped after the first twist, but it kept going and then it got a bit convoluted.
Do superheroes really exist? Maybe. But if they do, then so do supervillains. The comic book theming was very prominent in this movie. I really liked the use of colors. Brilliant purples were used for Elijah/Glass, greens for David/The Overseer, and golden for Kevin/The Beast. All of the actors were fantastic, especially McAvoy. It’s really something to see him transform from one personality to another in a split second.
Overall I appreciated Glass. Most of it was good. It tied all three movies together well. Universal Pictures acquired permission from Buena Vista International to use footage from Unbreakable in Glass. It’s nice to see movie studios working together and not holding up a movie for dumb reasons (lawyers, etc).
Side note: while doing research for this review, I just found out that James McAvoy was Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I don’t know why but my mind was blown. He played 24 different personalities, including a perpetual 9 year old and The Beast in Split and Glass, so I don’t know why a half-man/half-goat is shocking to me but it is!
