Can't think of a clever pun for Glass
I give this movie 8.5/10 thumbs up. Worth seeing, but don’t expect to be blown away.
The enigma wrapped in mystery cocooned in a nebulous chimichanga that is M. Night Shyamalan and his film making career has once again given us a film higher than the standard dumpster fires of January. It’s not saying much but he’s clearly staked his claim in this frosty month of broken resolutions and civil rights remembrances.
Unbreakable was a wonderful, deliberately paced film which ponders the notion that familial bonds are the adjective which gives the movie its title. Split was a touch darker of a film which posits the idea that when families take a nasty turn left of center, monsters are made (this story line is continued and wrapped up here). Glass is trying to show that comic book movies bereft of grand spectacle can be just as compelling. Not such lofty goals, I’ll admit but a bit more timely in the age of horribly overblown action sequences. Yes, there are topics and themes of the film relating to family, friendship (the Stockholm Syndrome kind), sacrifice, and others, but they are barely touched upon and discarded easily. Shyamalan is out to bring tension and rising action to a thrilling climax without asking a purple goblin with a golden glove that gives him telekinetic powers to launch a moon at a wisecracking billionaire fitted into an intuitive suit of armor that can formulate weaponry seemingly by reading the mind of its wearer.
If you can abide cheesy on-the-nose-not-trusting-the-intellect-of-the-audience-to-figure-it-out-themselves dialogue like “I thought this was a limited edition.” “No, it’s an origin story.”, then you can abide this movie. It has all the flair and touches which are so distinctly M. Night he is close to carving out his own little genre of film making, which he just might do by the end of his career once he’s made folks forget his more disastrous missteps. Present are images of actors reflected off shiny surfaces, lengthy shots through windows and flapping material, prerequisite red herrings and plot twists (which, admittedly, are actually quite easy to spot in this one), reserved but exciting action, humor so dry it must have been collected from the sand dunes of the Sahara, and the director inserting himself into a small but significant role.
It’s easy to suggest that James McAvoy chews the scenery here but he’s asked to basically carry a film in which everyone else is keeping things tight and narrow (for the love of crumb cake, Samuel L. Jackson twitches the corner of his mouth until the midpoint of the film). And for a villain as broad and zany as Kevin Wendell Crumb’s horde, McAvoy never takes it too far. This film could, and actually hints at going MCU broad, but cleverly doesn’t. Credit the writer/director with this. He doesn’t try to make every interaction with a personality we’ve already seen give off a new revelation or joke. They actually become repetitive, but not boringly so. Bruce Willis is Bruce Willis and isn’t given much to do here, outside of a poorly crafted hero line near the end. It’s sad, really. He’ll go back to doing mindless action flicks that will show up on your Netflix and Amazon Prime feed before you even are aware they were released in theaters. Were I to driect movies, he and other character actors with leading male potential in their golden years would be the only people I’d employ. You know the type, J.T. Walsh, Michael Jeter, James Hampton. Familiar enough to say “I saw him in _____ but have to IMDB to remember his name.” Sarah Paulson is on dangerous ground here. She’s been asked to play creepy and not quite gorgeous woman so many times she’s becoming the female Edward G. Robinson of typecasting. While not a revelation, the return of tri-named Ana Taylor Joy and Spencer Treat Clark (Shyamalan, for his faults, is a master of drawing performances from young actors) is quite welcome, who are asked to fill in the times between psych hospital scenes doing things like researching on the computer and having inconsequential conversations with authority figures. It moves the plot along but does make you pine for the more exciting stuff. As someone who’s studied theater and makeup a little bit, I can empathize with Charlayne Woodard, who’s tasked with giving a weighty performance in some old-people prosthetic almost as bad as the beards in Gettysburg.
Shyamalan doesn’t swing and miss, but doesn’t knock out of the park, the emergence of a powerful new villain, revealed in his own trademark reservedness. It’s not terribly original though. There’s a scene in the second Sherlock Holmes movie which seems blatantly plagiarized here. We’ll call this part of the movie a solid double.
Go and see it with your sweetie and leave the popcorn to those seeing Aquaman. This isn’t that type of movie. It’s not enough of a movie to win back Shyamalan haters (I don’t see the sites devoted to dashing him to pieces being taken down anytime soon) but is a fine conclusion to his Philadelphia superhero trilogy, along with setting up, but not totally revealing, a bigger world possibly to come.
