Glass

The biggest flop of the year? Quite possibly. I saw the film in the cinema two weeks ago and it smoked out of my head so quickly that I'm only writing about it now, and that doesn't bode damn well. I don't know if Shyamalan has family problems, is drowning in debt or has turned to drugs because after The Visit and Split it looked like he was back to where we wanted him to be, but now he's plummeting down again and has made perhaps the most boring film I've ever seen in the cinema. The acting aces did not please at all. James McAvoy overacts horribly and is not interesting at all, Bruce Willis is a clear candidate to the Golden Raspberry and Samuel L. Jackson unfortunately didn't say much. The film offers almost nothing. It's not action, horror, thriller, funny or suspenseful. It fits the drama, but it's properly tedious, visually unappealing and strangely overwrought at the end. A strange, uninteresting and unentertaining film and I hate that wholeheartedly. I felt like I went to a restaurant and ordered a beef steak medium well with mushrooms, asparagus and chips and ended up getting a steak well done with roast potatoes, carrots and salad. This is not how I imagined my first cinema visit this year. 30% (02/08/2019)

Mr. Shyamalan put a lot effort into this one. He works consistently with the dramatic potential of the three main characters and their deepening interactions, which bring them closer to one another in the same house. The story escalates and entertains by exploring and uncovering the essence of the brilliant theme (the magical idea of comic book heroes existing in real life) that he created 19 years ago and followed up on three years ago. As we’re accustomed to with him, he did it with abundant visual creativity and thematic references, while making two different points in the climax. But despite the fact that everything fits together in the first point and becomes conspiratorial in the right way, as well as original and bold when considering the viewer’s expectations, I’m not quite sure I wanted it that way. Not to mention the second point, which simply should not be there at all, because the movie absolutely doesn’t build up to it. (01/20/2019)

Well… Given that I was mentally prepared for the worst, I’m not disappointed. In fact, I’m relatively a tiny bit pleasantly surprised that, at least conceptually, it makes some sense. IMHO, it is well though-out. In Glass, Shyalaman explores a well known but slightly different motif of comics films - how it would be in the real world - without the viewer actually anticipating it until de last moment. For the closure of a trilogy, it makes sense overall. Unfortunately, the film is almost impossible to enjoy purely at the level of the viewer, but only after it finishes, if you are able and willing to appreciate its structure. There are several stupid moments that ruin what could be a pleasant experience, along with empty dialogues and inconsistent performances (I like Sarah Paulson, but here she was badly cast). What’s utter nonsense is the character of Taylor-Joy (what she’s forced to do there is unbelievable), as well as the final alliance of some of the characters. (02/13/2019)

This era calls for a strong stance against movies that divide the audience, and rather than beginning to accommodate such cases, it is easier to start laughing at them. Glass,  just like The Sixth Sense was in its time, is a film for patient viewers, but it doesn't suit today's trends too well. M. Night Shyamalan brings back that slow pacing and uniqueness, and while most of the running time promises a new generation of comic books, in the end, it brings the opposite, with an anti-comic-book whose finale kicks even the slightly sympathetic viewer directly in the tenders. With the help of perfectly used flashbacks, I have to admit that I simply wasn't prepared for some points, and although I don't think everything was planned like this twenty years ago, I would believe that what the creator carried in his head for years as a continuation of the Unbreakable relationship between David and Elijah should have looked just like this, and Kevin served as the ideal trigger for it. There is no room for digressions here, so I have to smirk at the complaints about the sequels or spin-offs we are now supposed to expect. They'll never come, and they shouldn't. Everything has been said, to the very last drop. And I'm giving it the highest rating, even though I'm not sure I can ever come back here again, and even though everything inside me was hurting when I left the cinema. (01/24/2019)

McAvoy and Willis are outstanding, as they finally have some good roles after a long time. Samuel L. Jackson doesn't take any chances, but he is surprisingly pushed into the background. Glass picks up nicely where we left off twenty years ago. Yes, times have changed since Unbreakable and maybe we don’t need another movie like that. But still it makes for a pleasant and down-to-earth contrast to today’s comic-book blockbusters. It works as it should, but it just lacks anything shocking after all of the X-Men movies. Even so, Shy offers solid and quite surprising twists. This had to have been an unpleasant surprise for those who have only seen Split, but not Unbreakable. They wouldn't be able to make heads or tails out of it. (01/20/2019)