'Glass' Shatters Under Pressure

The problem with M. Night Shyamalan is that he thinks that his movies are a lot smarter than they actually are.  Granted, some of his movies do border on brilliance, yet he still has a checkered reputation at best.  For every Sixth Sense. he has an After Earth.  For every Unbreakable, he has a The Happening.  For every Split, he has a The Last Airbender.  Furthermore, ever since The Sixth Sense, he's felt the need to out-do himself, which is quite a shame.  Indeed, it can be tiresome to watch his films because he just tries so hard.  (Not to mention his cringe Discount Hitchcock cameos.)  This is part of the explanation of why every his "misses" aren't just disappointing, but complete blunders.  Yet--amazingly--against all odds, the revelation of Split being a part of the same universe as Unbreakable brought so much hope.  Could Shyamalan finally have another hot-streak?  Would he redeem himself after becoming a parody of himself?  Will Glass conclude his epic trilogy on another high note?  The answer to all of these questions can be swiftly and irrevocably be answered by a famous line from The Wolf of Wall Street: "Absolutely f***ing not."

Since 2016 didn't exist for me, I wasn't around to participate in the hype of Split, which means it was on my short list to watch in 2017.  After having a slightly-above-average experience (and being confused why Bruce Willis showed up), I concluded that it was a strong "decent."  Interestingly, I had the same feeling about Unbreakable after I watched it in preparation for Glass.  A solid case could be made that either is the better film.  After watching Glass, though, both its predecessors look like masterpieces.  Glass is so deeply dull and pointless that not even James McAvoy could save it.

To give credit where its due, James McAvoy brought back his excellent portrayal of a D.I.D. patient, Kevin Wendell Crumb.  In Split he proved himself to be more than another token X-Man, and, frankly, was far better than that movie deserved.  His character transitions were authentic, impressive, and thoroughly entertaining, and this carried over into Glass.  Through no fault of his own, however, the realism and believability of his already-disbelievable character became shattered in Glass.  The script's forced and ridiculous need for him to change personalities so frequently caused his character to become laughable.  Instead of the timely and convincing personality changes as demonstrated in Split, we have a perplexing collage of personalities jammed into several seconds.  Unfortunately for McAvoy, a forced and preposterous script proved to undercut what could have been another wholeheartedly impressive accomplishment.

One positive aspect about Glass, however, was the set design.  There was more than one set piece that was very pleasing, and the staging of various characters worked very well in a few scenes.  This is not to say that this was anything particularly special, but it was a silver lining in what was otherwise an exhausting viewing experience.  There's just something nice about occasionally being able to say, "Oh, I liked what they did there."

The vast majority of Glass takes place in a single location; which, at face value, can be admirable.  Reservoir Dogs and 12 Angry Men spend almost 90 minutes in one location and are both excellent films.  However, this filming style can lend itself to several problems, and Glass has all of them.  Glass is filmed so claustrophobically that some scenes can justifiably cause anxiety.  Every scene of dialogue either gradually or immediately zooms to the point of being an extreme close-up of the actor's face.  This style of cinematography is not without its place, and can frequently be used successfully during dramatic or emotional scenes.

However, when the entire screen only contains one object or person, how enjoyable can the movie be?  Who wants to watch a film and see nothing but various (and often very similar) expressions for two hours?  This is the movie-equivalent of placing all of your decorations on one corner of the mantle.  Furthermore, this horrific cinematography technique combined with nauseating editing deemed the few action scenes completely incoherent.

Despite Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson supposedly being integral to the plot, they sure don't do much.  They either sit in a bed or a chair, respectively, and either deliver a cringe-worthy line of dialogue or say literally nothing, respectively.  Maybe it's good Samuel L. Jackson doesn't talk for most of the movie, because when he does talk, it's just awful.  I love Samuel L. Jackson, but this Shyamalan dialogue is just too much to take.  It's just exposition followed by lame one-liners.  That or boring, irrelevant character tangents.  Spare me.

Yet, maybe--just maybe--all of that would have been forgivable if ANYTHING had happened!  What, exactly, is the narrative?  Oh, that's right: there isn't one.  I mean, for crying out loud, Shyamalan, you had 19 years and three movies, and this was your conclusion?  Scene after scene of characters doing and saying the same pointless drivel over and over again until finally an equally ridiculous and differently boring "climax" finally arrives?  Not only that, but you tried to shove unbelievable nonsense down our throat for nearly two hours just for the sake of a painfully unrealistic and foolish"twist" ending?  And not only was the confusing and pointless twist a complete faceplant, but it was somehow both jammed in and stretched thin by the film's end.  Explain to me how that works.

What truly bothers me about Glass isn't that it's a stupid movie; it's that it's both stupid and boring.  Indeed, instead of an engaging and intelligent conclusion stemmed from its impressive source material, Glass is nothing more than a drawn-out, irredeemable bore.

If one were interested enough in Shyamalan's trilogy to subject themselves to a 38%-rating of a time-waster, then one should have the decency to not pay for it.  Yes, if one just had to watch Glass on Netflix, they'd have to dig it out of Netflix's

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