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John McCann says ‘Glass’ is a missed opportunity to end M. Night Shyamalan’s trilogy on a high note…
THOSE familiar with the work of M.Night Shyamalan will know that his career in film resembles somewhat of a rollercoaster ride with the heights of such features as ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Unbreakable’ followed by the lows of ‘The Happening’ and ‘After Earth’.
Lately though, the director’s career has seen a resurgence with ‘The Visit’ and in particular the 2017 film ‘Split’ gaining critical and popular acclaim for this “marmite” film maker.
On the back of an extremely intriguing ending to ‘Split’, I ventured to Tralee Omniplex to catch the final part in this supernatural trilogy, ‘Glass’ and wondered which M. Night Shyamalan would I get?
Continued below…
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The reality was that I got neither, in a feature that never really hits the heights of any of its predecessors in the series, yet thankfully never sinks to previous depths of mediocrity either.
Following the conclusion of Split, Glass finds Dunn (Bruce Willis) pursuing Kevin Wendell Crumb’s (James McAvoy) superhuman figure of The Beast in a series of escalating encounters, while the shadowy presence of Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) emerges as an orchestrator who holds secrets critical to both men.
Samuel L. Jackson in ‘Glass’.
As comfortable as Shyamalan is with setting an air mystery and the unknown, I can’t help but get the feeling in Glass that as chuffed as he was reintroducing the characters from ‘Unbreakable’ towards the end of ‘Split’ that he never really thought through what to actually do with them in this film.
James McAvoy’s multi-layered performance in ‘Split’ was central to the success of the movie, yet seems jaded and overplayed here.
Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson perform credibly in what is scant source material and the whole production seems to move at a pedestrian pace for a lot of its’ near two-hour running time.
As in all his movies, the director does surprise us with the show-stopping big reveal towards the end and to M.Night Shyamalan’s credit, this reveal along with competent cast performances (despite any real emotional weight) does salvage ‘Glass’ to a certain degree.
However as the end credits role , I can’t help but feel that this was yet again somewhat of a missed opportunity to bring the intriguing supernatural series to a more triumphant end and the search for M.Night Shyamalan’s mojo continues in earnest!
2.5/5
• For more of John McCann’s movie reviews, check out his Facebook page here and website here
