Starring James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, Samuel L. Jackson. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
M. Night Shyamalan has had a strange career path; his first three films were all good – The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs – his following films less so. The Village was good until the twist, Lady in the Water was self-indulgent piffle, The Happening was laughably bad, The Last Airbender was a masterclass in how not to adapt an anime, After Earth was boring with an uncompelling lead role from Will Smith and The Visit was a painting by numbers found footage lark. But Split came along with a twist ending – it wasn’t shit, and was connected to Unbreakable. And now here we are.
Glass picks up the threads of both Unbreakable and Split in the culmination of the trilogy. An overview of the stories – David Dunn (Bruce Willis) was the sole survivor of a train crash that killed everyone else, when he met Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) a man with an extreme brittle bone disease, David is told he is part of a legend of superheroes passed down through generations. David discovers in time that Elijah caused the train crash, and has him committed to a psychiatric hospital.
Seventeen years later, Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) a man with 24 personalities in his head dubbed The Horde kidnaps three young girls including Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy) as a sacrifice to a new personality – The Beast – one that will be beyond the power of humans. Casey escapes captivity after a confrontation with The Beast, but Kevin also escapes.
Now, David Dunn spends his time running a security company with his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) and moonlighting as a vigilante. When he crosses paths with Kevin and the two are put in a mental hospital they come face to face with Price again, and Dr Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) who is convinced all this delusion is in their head.
For some, Unbreakable remains the high watermark of Shyamalan films, it’s slow but heavy on atmosphere and features on of the last Bruce Willis performances where he still cared about what he was doing and wasn’t impossible. Here, Shyamalan is slightly making a sequel to Split as opposed to Unbreakable in it’s pacing and characterisation which may put some people off.
From the off Shyamalan still has an eye for style, there’s no denying he is rather conscious about what is happening on screen in his movies. Here, like Unbreakable, colour plays a huge role in defining characters. Willis is always surrounded by green, wears green, is near green, while Jackson is always in purple, things related to him are purple, and the same for McAvoy and yellow. It’s this kind of attention that made Shyamalan one of the most inventive directors in Hollywood. His attention to detail, and his ability to craft a narrative that they hoodwinked you even when you were expecting it.
Here he is clearly happy he has a built in audience and wants to do something different, bringing back all the actors from previous movies is a great route to take, and he clearly knows these characters and knows what he has wanted to do with them this whole time. Even if his mash up of the two films seems ill-fitting and might have benefitted from just going for an altogether different vibe.
Willis is on top form, best he’s been since Looper and on par with his late nineties early 2000s work. Maybe bored of being the ire of every director in Hollywood, Willis actually commits to his role and does well considering some of his scenes are just him reacting, not only this but factor in that the entire cast are giving it all they’ve got and you know that this could be something.
And it could be, but it falls short, perhaps in part thanks to a mid-section which lacks the tension of horror that Split had or the slow burn of Unbreakable (and James Newton Howard’s amazing score). There are some nice rug pulls, but given how good Unbreakable was an deconstructing the genre this feels a little too clever for it’s own good, lacking in any terror or intrigue.
What we have is a film that could go on the gain cult status and be reassessed and it wouldn’t be a bad thing, it’s thanks in part to the commitment of McAvoy that the film holds together, and that Shyamalan remains for the most part a director that actually wants to try new things. Admittedly his adaptation fell flat, but even in his lesser works there is always an attempt at something new and here is trying stuff out when he could comfortably coast for his career. Not a super hit, but not a villainous dud either. This remains something that could have been a lot more than it is.
