Breaking The Glass

Conditions: Late

Film Review: Glass

I get the feeling Night Shyamalan doesn't actually like his audiences all that much.  Maybe he's angry for them deserting him over the last ten years or so, maybe he just has some kind of weird disdain for people who try to watch or even interpret his films.  A few years ago he made Split, which was a fairly low-key movie about a psychopath with multiple personalities who kidnapped and killed girls.  The film got attention through the final scene that set it as being in the same world as his classic Unbreakable, with Bruce Willis there as David Dunn.  A sequel then to this sudden franchise of films was hotly anticipated, and we all filed into the theater to see what's what.

The first issue is that this is not a sequel to Unbreakable.  Oh how I wish that it was.  A film delving into the David Dunn character and an exploration of how he does his low-level Batman routine at nights, while during the day running a home security firm, all with the help of his grown son would have been pretty interesting.  Sadly, the most interesting thing about Glass is considering all the different ways it could have been really something.  What we get is a close sequel to Split, with yet more exploration of the Kevin characters (which is really just more time spent being impressed with James Macavoy's ability to switch between various personalities.) as he is caught and imprisoned.

David is caught too, as he was in the middle of battling Kevin, and surprise surprise it turns out Mr Glass himself is also locked away in the same high security facility.  We're introduced to the very nice doctor who will be taking care of them, and assured that everything has been taken care of.  The security guards are vigilant, the facility is filled with surveillance cameras, and each inmate has their own personalised security system that will disable them if they try to escape.  It's clear these guys are well funded, organised and very well informed.

Which is why it's a bit of a surprise it all gets defeated so quickly.  On paper, a film where the likes of David, Glass and Kevin have to team up to escape a mental asylum could be pretty interesting.  Or alternatively, one where they rage against the system and each other could also be pretty interesting.  But here, it's all so oddly stilted.  Mr Glass is constantly kept sedated, so he spends most of the film sitting in a wheelchair while twitching.  This effectively takes the most dynamic personality of the film off the board, and the head doctor spends a few scenes trying to convince the other two they're actually delusional rather than special.  This story line is going precisely nowhere, so we have to wait until finally Glass starts putting his plan into operation.  Turns out he's been pretending to take his meds.  For like 20 years.  Fortunately for him, only one guard is on duty at night, and he's a moron.

Anyway, this leads us to the big finale, where Glass gets the other two out.  He wants them to fight each other on a big skyscraper, where everyone will see and so superheroes will be proven to be real, but that seems to be a bit of Night misdirection, and they end up fighting on the lawn instead.  And then I guess you could say we get the big twist.  And here it is.  Turns out the doctor is actually a member of a secret organisation that for all of human history has been killing people who are "special", so keeping the balance.  So the super secret swat teams rolls up, they wait for Kevin to kill Mr Glass in a fit of rage, then they shoot Kevin and drown David in a puddle.  And it's only during that drowning that the doctor decides to tell us just what the hell is going on.  It's played off as some kind of inspirational origin thing for the next generation, but to me this just seems like a lack of imagination.  Subverting expectations is fine, but lets not forget Night has decided to make a sequel here.  Who really comes away entertained from a film sequel that ends like this?  I guess maybe only the director himself, who I can imagine chortling away behind the scenes about how he pulled yet another one over our eyes.  One extreme close up out of five.

- Peace out