Glass (January 18, 2019)

Its probably doing so well because it's the only thing resembling an action hero movie at the moment.

 

Not keen on Director’s cameos.

 

Teenagers discussing comics in Comic store scene near the end. I would have thought with Nintendo-Switch /iPhone adulation today’s kids would have no interest in superheroes/comics in 2019. That is they’ll watch the latest Marvel/DC film ..but not comics per se. What’s the age demograph for buying comics ?

 

Actually I meant to say, direct and star in.

I usually always like cameos, be it the Director or anyone.

 

Completely off topic (sort of)...but is Anya Taylor-Joy the cutest girl in movies today ?

 

She is certainly that.

It looks like she wants to be in the next Alita movie too.



Creepy eyes???

 

I saw the 3 movies back to back this weekend. I had only seen Unbreakable before and it is one of my favorite movies. A minor classic. Loved the Willis/Dunn character.

Split was just ok, McAvoy does a great job with the Beast character in all its permutations.

I so wanted to like Glass, because the first two movies do a great job at creating the characters and the universe they live in. I got to say I got goosebumps at the cameo at the end of Split.

But Glass is so full of plot holes, implausible and illogical moments that kicked me out of the story quite a few times. Way too many to count, specially once they are at the hospital. That was lazy, bad writing on MNS part. The so called twist is like the twist in The Village: better movie if he had not done it.

It has been mentioned here before, but the direction (not the plot but what the director does) turns so bad once the characters step outside the hospital that it seems for that last part MNS turned over the movie to his assistant directors and took a vacation.

This could have been a great adult super hero movie, but it is just too sloppy. I so, so wanted to like it.

 

I liked Glass a lot more than you for the pacing and character development but I won't disagree with you about the plot holes and the outside scene. Just seemed odd, like MNS didn't know quite how to finish it and extend the time out there.

 

Glass least favourite.

 

It made sad at the end..

 

I was surprised it did as well as it did: Shyamalan did really well to keep the budget under $20M (and apparently he financed quite a bit of it himself), because it ultimately made almost $250M. That's a really, really profitable film. I liked the film but didn't love it, but it had some really good moments.

 

It was just getting good at the end, more superhero cgi would have helped, guess a bigger budget was required to pull that off.

 

glass was a terrible movie, just terrible.

 

"Glass" felt like it was the result of forcing two jigsaw puzzle pieces together that look similar but don't quite fit together.

It relied too much on the audience's appreciation of the previous movies & their characters/actors. Not enough brought to the table on it's own, so it felt...lacking, or incomplete.

 

Precisely the opposite of what I thought. I was glad that it was not a cartoonish CGI fest. The two fights between David and Kevin (or whatever name you want to use) seemed real enough in that they were just two super strong guys facing each other on pretty equal terms. The second time David is slowly beating Kevin down by punching him into submission, punch by punch, not by throwing him into a building a mile away like in the Marvel movies.

It was all the plot holes and illogical and implausible nonsense that ruined it for me. I could list 20 of them but if you liked it, you liked it.

 

This movie was, for the first 40 minutes or so, extremely frustrating. By the end, it became clear why it's much better than critics (and many here) feel it is. It's not a perfect film, but it's a very good climax to the trilogy.

To understand Glass (the film and the man) you have to really understand Unbreakable. Unbreakable is a film about a man who slowly discovers he has abilities beyond what normal people do. He's not a Superman or a Spider-man, but rather a normal guy with increased strength and an apparently inability to die from things that would kill the rest of us. He is susceptible to water however. It is an origin story, of sorts, for David Dunn who by the time of Glass becomes known as the Overseer. But, as importantly, it is also the story of Elijah Price. Mr. Glass, as he calls himself, is on the opposite end of the spectrum as David Dunn. His bones break extremely easily. He is, however, extremely intelligent. He believes at first that he is a "mistake" but his fascination with comic books leads him to a theory: that if he exists (on one end of the spectrum) that someone else must exist on the other end...someone nearly invincible. He sets about causing train crashes and fires to lure out a hero. When learning of David Dunn's survival (actually, completely unscathed) in a train crash where everyone else died, he realizes he is right. He lets himself be caught by David Dunn at the end of the film and is sent to a psychiatric hospital.


WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS

Flash forward to present day and Elijah is still in the psychiatric hospital and David Dunn is fighting crime with his son's help. No one else had emerged in public that resembled a superhero or super villain until The Beast showed up 3 weeks earlier (in Split). Now, as in many comics, the villain comes out of "hiding". Elijah is convinced that there are many more out there like himself, David Dunn, and The Beast. The Beast and Dunn are easily caught which at first makes you say wtf? It didn't make any sense to me nor did it make sense that there's a psychiatrist out there (specializing in "superhero delusions" of all things) that thinks these three should be treated together...one is a split-personality, the other is a heavily-sedated major criminal, and the other is a vigilante that should be in court, not a hospital. Obviously, it didn't make sense to Elijah either because he figured out Dr. Staple's real motives right around the time I thought that this story either really sucks or there is something more to it. And like a real super villain, he had a plan to let the world know about people like David Dunn and The Beast. This motivation came from his belief that others with "powers" will emerge from the shadows once the first few are exposed...hence, an origin story. It's a shame that neither Dunn nor The Beast survive, but this film was about closure.

So basically, the film came full circle from Unbreakable. It established Elijah, and not David Dunn, as the real main character...much like Darth Vader, not Luke, is the real main character in the original Star Wars trilogy. It resolved the real motive of the trilogy: to let the "real" world know that super heroes and villains exist. I think this overall motivation was brilliant on MNS's part...almost every superhero movie glosses over the reactions of ordinary people to the fact that superheroes exist. It's taken for granted or merely accepted in short order. Even the reactions of the people in the train station at the end of the film feels natural...people don't know yet what to make of it. Is it real, is it CGI? But they will eventually learn the truth and the world will never be the same. MNS doesn't tell that story (every other superhero film has done that already) but rather shows you the origin of the concept of superheroes in the real world. While Unbreakable was an origin story of an individual, Glass is the culmination of a larger origin story...the idea that superheroes exist in the real world. And his methods of telling that story, by making us and the main characters question whether it's all in their/our heads, was well done. Also, having a secret society that tries to keep the balance by eliminating superheroes and villains alike is very comic bookish as well and explains why more super-beings haven't become known to the public.

Yet with all of these allusion to comic books, neither Unbreakable or Glass feel like comic book movies. They feel like actual possibilities told within the framework of a comic book...an un-comic comic book. Not like the Batman trilogy which is a more "realistic" version of a comic book story, but more like a comic book version of a real story...if that makes sense. I agree that it was a shame that David Dunn dies and I still question if that was necessary. I think for the trilogy's sake, it makes sense. I suppose that he could have died a more "heroic" death, but that's part of what makes Glass special...that he didn't die like heroes in comic books do.

Anyway, I think there's more here than meets the eye. I don't think it's on the cerebral level of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it does present a smart, unique way of approaching a genre that is wrung out from repetitiveness, mediocrity, and CGI-laden spectacle. No, it doesn't have the subtlety of Unbreakable, relying more on truths that are not evident at first, but it's not a twist-driven movie either like The Village or The Sixth Sense. It's more reminiscent of Signs, imo, which makes it a very solid effort, albeit not a perfect one.

 

Of course Glass was released only 19-years after Unbreakable.

Understanding a boring movie does not make it none the less boring.

I would rather read through your post than sit through Glass. I would rather walk on broken glass than sit through Glass.

If you like movies where "light" controls people. Try The Mole People (1956).



People are sentenced to death in the Fire of Ishtar, which turns out to be ordinary sunlight and flashlights become a tool to control horrifying monsters.

Of course, banks of flood lights are somewhat less expensive than special effects shots from lightsabers. This worked in favor of Shyamalan keeping the budget under control, which admittedly, he accomplished.

 

Watched this movie again over the weekend, and I was again bowled over by McAvoy's rapid cycling through Crumb's multiple personalities!

Wrt keeping budget under control, I thought that Elijah's complete misdirect about the Osaka Tower skyscraper gave the movie a larger sense of scale merely by showing a graphic behind a news anchor, all the while we never go there in the movie - brilliant on Shyamalan's part!

 

I regret wasting 2 hours of my life watching this. At least I wasn't in a theater.

 

Am going to watch it again..want to see what I think of it now that there are no surprises.

 

None of it makes any sense while its happening and gets even dumber when all the twists are revealed.