Glass (2019)

Glass serves as a sequel to two films from M. Night Shyamalan, 2000’s Unbreakable and 2018’s Split, the latter of which tied itself to the former with the post-end title stinger. Bruce Willis makes his return as the ‘unbreakable’ security company owner David Dunn, who, along with his adult son (and sole employee) Joseph, is trying to track down a crazy roaming the streets of Philadelphia who is abducting teenage girls.  James McAvoy continues his portrayal of Kevin Wendell Crumb, aka The Horde, a conglomeration of split personalities that take over Kevin’s body at various points, including the homicidal brute known as The Beast, who is the one feeding on those girls David is looking for.  Samuel L. Jackson also returns from Unbreakable as the titular character, the brittle mastermind self-named Mr. Glass, aka Elijah Price, who has apparently been laying low for some time under heavy sedation.  The three end up rounded up and subsequently kept separate chambers within a high-security psychiatric facility led by Sarah Paulson’s Dr. Ellie Staple, whose specialty is in rehabilitating persons who believe they are superheroes. From Split, Anya Taylor-Joy returns as Casey Cooke, who survived her terror-filled first meeting with The Horde while in its persona as The Beast, but who finds herself drawn to help him escape his inner demons.

As with his last two efforts, Glass is produced by Shyamalan and Blumhouse Productions for Universal Pictures and Buena Vista (Disney), with an estimated budget of $20 million.  A chunk of that is necessary to bring back the main stars, so that leaves little left for such things as effects or action.  Though the film is called Glass, Samuel L. Jackson gets the least amount of screen time among the three central stars, and much of that time we do see him, he’s not speaking, so one wonders how much of Jackson ended up on the cutting room floor of his own movie.  Sarah Paulson gets at least as much screen time, and likely more.

M. Night Shyamalan ha said that Glass was the longest script he’d ever written, and much of that shows up on the screen.  This is a very talky movie, perhaps to its detriment, as much of the story tells rather than shows what’s going on much of the time.  He shot the entire thing, but realized, after the first cut clocked in at a heft three hours and twenty minutes, it would need to be pared down significantly, with the finished product finding about an hour and ten minutes of that first cut sliced out.  Given what we get in the end, it’s hard to imagine that Shyamalan’s mind was just bursting with so many ideas he had little time to cram them all in; he has a couple of solid notions, but takes his sweet time in getting to them in favor of reiterating the powers of the main characters repeatedly.

As with his other films, Shyamalan is more interested in making a psychological thriller in the comic book superhero realm, rather than a sci-fi or action-oriented flick, as most other superhero properties might.  In that way, Shyamalan is subverting expectations, intentionally, which may frustrate some viewers looking forward to seeing the small cinematic universe he is building up finally cut loose into costumed heroes battling across vast city-scapes.  Shyamalan is more interested in seeing them as humans with powers, rather than letting the superhero notions overcome their personas.  That may not be what everyone wants, essentially dragging out what would be in the first 30 minutes of a typical superhero film into the course of three movies, but it’s definitely not where the interests lie with the trilogy of films made thus far.

Like the character of the Horde, I’m of a split mind when it comes to Glass. There are some notable things to admire. James McAvoy continues to give the part(s) his all, with an incredible nimbleness is the 20+ personalities he displays on the screen, all of them distinct and easy to differentiate, thanks to the quality of McAvoy’s talents.  The tone is admirably minimalist in its delivery, which is refreshing in this era where there is a need to be constantly viscerally stimulating and have prolonged set pieces. There are some choice ideas in the mix as well, with the notion tossed out there that these characters may not have any superpowers at all except that which exists in their heads, though there’s likely not going to be anyone in the audience that thinks even a storyteller as subversive as Shyamalan would actually try to get us to buy into this angle with all that we’ve already seen in the prior two films.

On the downside, the inert nature of much of the run time does begin to sink the film down into territory that will test the patience of many. Compounding this, Bruce Willis, while a welcome return, is clearly done trying to be the least bit charismatic, and barely registers. Samuel L. Jackson is more game for what Shyamalan is offering, but he too is hamstrung by the fact that his character is under sedation for half of the film, and confined to a wheelchair through all of it, when he’s not off the screen altogether.  By the end of the film, you’ll feel like all of this is a pilot for a proposed TV offshoot, should Shyamalan become interested in television. It might even have benefited from being a TV show from the get-go, given the desire for Shyamalan to want to explore these characters psychologically before they’re ever called upon to do much that heroic or villainous.  They’re great characters in search of a greater movie that Glass, with Shyamalan too interested in exploring down to minutia to see them as building toward something more exciting or relevant.

In the end, Glass represents the story that Shyamalan wants to tell, and not the ones that fans of Unbreakable have been wanting him to tell for the better part of twenty years, finally being able to cut loose into a well-built superhero genre with three engaging actors at the forefront.  How much that will impress or frustrate you will say more about you than it does about Shyamalan, who has spent much of his career either impressing or frustrating by denying his audience’s expectations. It’s a lengthy movie, despite its reported cuts, primarily because it is slow to get going, and doesn’t move a great deal until it gets to an ending that will further make many viewers wonder if it really needed three whole movies to cover.  Fans who were hoping for a follow-up to Unbreakable finally have it, though I wonder how many of those no longer care to see another entry after seeing the direction that Shyamalan wants to continue going.

Glass is a bit like its namesake, an empty vessel that has no real value to its beholder without something of appealing substance to pour into it, and Shyamalan, despite an ample run time, doesn’t have enough juice to fill his more than halfway.

Qwipster’s grade: C+

MPAA Rated: PG-13 for violence including some bloody images, thematic elements, and language.
Running Time: 129 min.

Cast: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Paulson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard, Luke Kirby, Adam David Thompson
Small role: M. Night Shyamalan
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Screenplay: M. Night Shyamalan