'Glass' Shreds Story

The opening images of Glass tease a movie that will hold the interest of its audience. But like a straight boy flirting with a gay man, it fails to deliver on its promise. After seeing an advanced screening of the movie, the only thought was how in the world did M. Night Shyamalan make an over bloated movie not worth the price of admission? Answer: he funded it himself.

The movie centers on Samuel L. Jackson's Elijah Glass, a genius who has been institutionalized for various crimes over the year. The first part of the movie sees Jackson sitting in a wheelchair twitching and not much more. Why bring one of the most beloved actors and have them do nothing for most of their screen time? It's a decision that only Shyamalan can answer but sadly he doesn't.

There is more action with David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and The Horde (played by the mesmerizing James McAvoy). The story makes little sense. The Horde have kidnapped cheerleaders for some reason, maybe to have them in skirts and chained to a wooden bar? It almost seems as though it was satisfying someone's fetish more than advancing the plot much. Dunn touches The Horde and sees the girls and goes to rescue them.

Of course, the police show up and arrest both men. Because why not? Sarah Paulson's Dr. Ellie Staple shows up and takes control of the situation, having both characters locked up in a nearby psychiatric hospital. This is where the story was alleged to have got going but there were a bunch of scenes that seemed designed to let the actors have some fun and collect a paycheck and not have to do much acting. The lone exception was McAvoy, whose character has multiple personalities and he had to work his way through all 24 identities.

Paulson camps it up as best as she can, but even she realizes that the worst season of American Horror Story is still ten times better than this dreck. As the movie builds to its climax, if you can call it that, we find that the twist that we thought was going to resolve everything wasn't and there was one more. Finally, the movie got interesting and there were only five minutes left.

Even with that final twist though, the movie isn't worth watching. It's not so much a gotcha moment, like The Sixth Sense's reveal scene—it's more of a "Oh that's cool" moment where Shyamalan tried to rescue the movie by actually paying attention and trying to write something decent. Maybe if he had done that on page one, the rest of the film wouldn't have been so bad that there was only one person in the audience enthralled by it.

Seriously, even the press that was in attendance was restless. Many of them grumbled on the way out that it had been a waste of time for them, and they wished they could have gone to see something a little better or that they could have watched paint dry. Just read the other reviews of the film if there is any doubt.

The premise was interesting: do superheroes really exist? And bringing together two Shyamalan classics, Unbreakable and Split, seemed like a good idea on paper. In execution, though, all that happened was the two other movies' legacies are being threatened and many fans of them are leaving wondering why they bothered to pay to see this flick.

It's a fair question. Outside of phenomenal performances led by McAvoy and Paulson, there is no reason to bother wasting an afternoon on this dreck. Go see a Marvel or DC movie. At least they deliver on that they promise.