“Glass” by M. Night Shyamalan is an odd film. Simply put, it’s odd.
Now the movie isn’t bad, that isn’t the impression you should be getting from the word ‘odd’. “Glass” is odd partially because it is the third installment of a cinematic universe that most people probably didn’t know existed. The two movies that came out before it w
ere 2000’s “Unbreakable” and 2016’s “Split” and both of them were good enjoyable films.
Now why else is “Glass” odd, besides its existence in a cinematic universe that people didn’t know they wanted. The film is odd because of the way it approaches superheroes and poses an interesting concept that superheroes are out in the world (that yes, they do exist) but something or someone doesn’t want the world to know. And this oddity is a good thing because there is a lot of cookie-cutter things that come along with superhero movies. They typically tend to follow a formula which Disney has dominated with lately i.e. the Marvel formula.
But “Glass” doesn’t follow that formula, in fact it tends to strive to be the antithesis of the Marvel formula while still staying in the boundaries of a superhero movie. Watching the film you tend to notice that the central character isn’t David Dunn (the hero from “Unbreakable”) but more so Elijah Price, played by Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Wendell Crumb, played by James McAvoy.
The movie has some very stunning visuals with the shots in the comic book shop and the rooftop fight between Dunn and Crumb being my particular favorites. There is also a lot of interesting nuances with the film when it comes to the creativity behind it. From the use of old deleted scenes from “Unbreakable” to help tie the plot together to the confirmation of fan theories into the actual canon. All of this is helped tied together by the cast of the film, primarily the three starring actors. McAvoy and Willis do a fantastic job of carrying the first half of the movie and Jackson picks up on the back end (because he doesn’t really speak for the first hour or so.)
The movie has its issues however as it is a little disjointed at times and has a twist that isn’t the worst but also certainly isn’t the best. Conceptually the twist is really interesting but the execution seemed a little odd. The film suffers from some pacing issues as well, starting off very fast and explosive and then teetering out towards the middle. The arc that David’s character went through however was the lowest point of the movie for me. There was just so much more that could have been done with the arc or at least more could have been done to give the arc a satisfactory resolution.
“Glass” is without a doubt an odd movie, but it isn’t a bad one as it probably settles in the C+ to B- range. Fans of “Unbreakable” and “Split” should definitely attend the movie to see the resolution of the Eastrail 177 trilogy.
