Introduction

M. Night Shyamalan is the kind of director that does not hesitate to express his way of thinking through the art of film, and although some of his past films have been critically received, there is no denying that the Unbreakable franchise is his greatest way of telling the world that he is never going to main stream his way of making films.

Glass is the third movie in M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable franchise following the events of 2017’s Split. The film, in fact, takes place right around 3 weeks or so after the ending of Split; as it was revealed to be a silent sequel to 2000’s Unbreakable.

The franchise is a somewhat super hero series of movies that don’t want to appear as what main stream has shown these type of films to be with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sony’s Spiderman films, FOX’s X-Men franchise, and the DC Expanded Universe. This is what makes this trilogy so great, because it wants to stand out as something different in a world where its type of story line would be seen differently compared to what super hero movies are today.

Characters and Plot of the Film

Glass, named after Samuel L. Jackson’s character’s nickname (Mr. Glass) focuses around a conflict between Bruce Willis’ character, David Dunn, and James McAvoy’s character who has 23 personalities with a 24th known as The Beast. These personalities together are known as the Horde.

Things go sideways during their fight when they are taken by authorities to a mental institution where  Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) tries to convince them that their belief that they are super human is all in their minds. The rest of the film is more of a thriller with an ending that can be taken two ways on viewing it for the first time as Samuel L. Jackson’s Elijah Price teams up with the Horde to plan an escape.

It has an ending that may or may not be what fans of Unbreakable and Split were wanting, but that’s what can be so great about it.

Performances, Expectations and General Thoughts

David Dunn (Bruce Willis) in this film, doesn’t have much of a different story arch as he did in Unbreakable, and didn’t have a lot of screen time in Glass even though he is presented as the franchise’s hero. This can be taken either as upsetting or understandable, because the premise of Glass is that Elijah Price (aka Mr. Glass) wants to escape the institution and make it known to the world that people with abilities are real and have been forced into secrecy for 10,000 years.

Elijah’s opposite in Unbreakable is David Dunn who learns he has super strength and can see if people’s darkness by touching them with his only weakness being water since he was almost drowned as a child. David and Elijah are set up as the villain and hero of the franchise. Whereas David Dunn is strong and powerful, Elijah Price has very fragile bones that have been easily broken ever since he was born, an by the events of Glass, he says to have had around 94 breaks in his whole life.

James McAvoy definitely steals the spotlight in terms of performances when he is going through the Horde’s personalities all at once throughout the film. This performance from him will certainly get him a few Oscar awards, or nominations at the least.

However, despite the facts within the mixed reviews of this film, I believe that Glass was a great way to close the trilogy and it does as much as it can to bring the story full circle, but viewers need to go into their first time seeing the film expecting to not get what they would want to happen out of it. Instead, see it as Shyamalan’s own story and way of presenting his form of artwork.

Overall, the experience of seeing Glass is very fun and entertaining because despite everything you want isn’t given to you, it wraps up a much beloved story line in a way that, whether enjoyed or not, will not be what you expected. Please be sure to go see Glass and any local theaters and enjoy the experience, however, it will be a good idea to check out Unbreakable and Split so that you can find yourself refreshed of the franchise before viewing Glass for the first time.