Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, Samuel L. Jackson
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 129 mins

Glass, director M. Night Shyamalan’s latest, isn’t a sequel in the traditional sense. It serves as a sequel to Unbreakable and to Split, a film which in a genius end-credit twist revealed itself to be a psuedo-supervillain origin story / spin-off to Unbreakable. This film sees the return of Bruce Willis’ David Dunn as his path crosses with James McAvoy’s multiple personalities. When both get arrested after Dunn tries to bring him to justice, they are both put in a psychiatric hospital where it is revealed that Samuel L. Jackson’s Mr Glass has also been secretly locked away in the years between the end of Unbreakable and this film. The unit is run by Sarah Paulson’s Dr Ellie Staple who tries to convince the trio that they have convinced themselves wrongly of their superpowers, questioning their past experiences and making them doubt themselves.

M. Night Shyamalan has had an interesting directorial career, his films varying wildly in quality. After a long slump with dud after dud, Shyamalan bounced back with the one-two punch that was The Visit and then Split so this is an important film for audiences to like and many fans have been waiting for a sequel to Unbreakable for years. Unbreakable was an excellent film and proved a tonic to the emerging superhero genre of its time, in effect acting as a superhero deconstruction piece. I also found a lot to like in Split but it does suffer with some creaky expository dialogue that weighs the film down. Unfortunately, initial reviews for this film are mixed-to-negative, so I was trepidatious before seeing the film to say the least due to the good work Shyamalan had done so far.

Glass is an excellent end to this trilogy and mostly represents Shyamalan at his best. It is pretty much a knock-out. Shyamalan develops these characters extremely well, furthering their character arcs and subverts expectations, for better or worse for some viewers. It is very cine-literate and further deconstructs the generic constructs of the superhero genre and offers some fascinating commentaries on these.  As is to be expected, there is a Shyamalan twist and it does undo the good work a little as it isn’t one of his best twists but if you can buy into the film’s central conceit beforehand, it really is excellent. As with a lot of Shyamalan’s filmography, it would be very easy for one to laugh and sneer at this film, as the film walks a fine line.

The performances are uniformly excellent, with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson the standouts. Both characters have interesting arcs which are unexpected, Willis a more mature and sombre David Dunn if a little underused who evokes a Batman-like, vigilante figure, putting in one of the best performances in his career. Samuel L. Jackson is also great as Elijah and the film fully utilises his skill-set again. James McAvoy again is reliably great as he was in Split. Of the rest of the cast, Sarah Paulson makes a good impression as the psychiatric doctor with her own agenda but Anya Taylor-Joy‘s character is a little forced and I didn’t quite buy into her relationship with McAvoy’s character.

Technically, Glass succeeds in spades too. The score is outstanding, West Dylan Thordson returning from Split and successfully melding both past themes whilst creating some memorable new ones. DP Mike Gioulakis is also great and there are numerous shots which are just a work of art to look at.

Ultimately, Glass is a welcome surprise and for the vast majority of its running time, is a gripping and intelligent sequel. Its ending does threaten to undo some of the good work somewhat as it feels as though Shyamalan hasn’t quite figured out what to do. I loved Glass and can’t wait to watch it again and it might possibly be the best film in the trilogy if it holds up on future viewings.  I sincerely hope that in a few years time, this film will be reassessed as it’s been really unfairly recieved.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Excellent)