A see-through half empty ‘Glass’
Print Edition
SAMUEL L. Jackson’s Elijah Price, or Mr Glass, as he prefers to be called, was by far the most compelling part of M. Night Shyamalan’s slow-burn comic book send-up “Unbreakable.” A brilliant, tortured manipulator and superhero enthusiast suffering from osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease), Glass is that kind of charismatic supervillain you can’t get enough of.
Nineteen years is certainly a long time to wait for more Mr Glass. But Shyamalan, even after naming this long-gestating film after Jackson’s character, decides to withhold him from the audience even longer. Yes, he makes Mr Glass a highly sedated vegetable who gets to do little more thank blink and intensely stare at the camera for what feels like more than half of the movie.
It’s one of the many ways in which “Glass,” which seems to delight in building up anticipation only to pull the rug out from under you, manages to both frustrate and under whelm.
“Glass” definitely doesn’t care to help if you haven’t seen “Unbreakable” or “Split,” either. It just dives right in with little exposition. We see Bruce Willis’ David Dunn taking a couple of teen pranksters to task. Then it jumps to James McAvoy’s multiple personalities.
David, who is working alongside his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark, the same actor from “Unbreakable,”) has been trying to find the missing cheerleaders. Joseph warns him to be careful, because David has also been branded a public nuisance for all of his would-be good deeds that have left criminals and victims injured and looking for someone to sue.
David and the “Horde” (the term used to describe McAvoy’s personalities) meet and fight a bit, but are interrupted by the authorities and Sarah Paulson’s Dr Ellie Staple who take them to the psychiatric hospital where Price is.
Dr Staple explains with oozing condescension that she specializes in treating those afflicted by delusions of grandeur. She says their abilities and weaknesses are all in the mind, and can be explained away by science and childhood traumas. This little group therapy session in a bubblegum pink room is one of the more compelling parts, and it seems like the film is gleefully destroying the superhero origin story myth, sending its main characters into a spiral of doubt.
But don’t get too attached to this, or any other path Shyamalan seems to be taking us down, because he will change course, backtrack and laugh at you for getting too committed to one narrative, while really going all in on some questionable ones, like having the Horde’s sole surviving captive from “Split,” Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), come back as a sort of Stockholm Syndrome empathy machine to worry about him.
Mr Glass does emerge from his vegetative state, eventually, and kicks the movie into gear as only Jackson can do. McAvoy is once again giving his all to all the characters, and watching him shift between them is still enjoyable, but perhaps not worth all the screen time it gets. Willis barely gets anything to do at all. But for all the hype behind these three characters meeting, and the years it took to get it off the ground, “Glass” is one big anti-climax.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
