GLASS

By Marc S. Sanders

M Night Shyamalan’s Glass is mind numbingly stupid and unbearably boring. A slow moving slog of a movie that scrapes the bottom of a barrel of wasted, rejected plot devices.

This is apparently the 3rd in a series of super hero comic book inspired movies from Shyamalan, but it seems to lack the research into the true construction of a standard comic book or graphic novel. If Samuel L Jackson as the title character declares this is an “origin story,” when it’s clearly not, well then Shyamalan expects you to believe that at face value.

The three central roles played by Jackson, Bruce Willis and James McAvoy are meant to be super human beings. Sure, Willis as the hero David symbolized in green with a poncho has evident powers. Jackson as a villain in purple, however, does not possess any powers. He just masterminds disasters that in other films would be regarded as sabotage and terrorism. Where’s the super power in that? McAvoy as “The Horde” is just mentally ill who hulks out and climbs walls when his beast persona takes over. Yeah, that’s superhuman but for me it’s seems overshadowed by the mental ailments befalling McAvoy’s role as Kevin and 23 other personalities.

Shyamalan is ridiculously overconfident in being a comic book aficionado but has he ever read a comic book? Sorry but I didn’t recognize much in the form of a standard monthly super hero yarn here.

His script has no bite. It has no memorable moments and it has a 2nd act of 4 total that is simply Sarah Paulson sitting in a chair playing a psych doctor offering an explanation for the purpose of the three men. READER, this one has four characters sitting (never standing, never walking, never even turning their heads) in a large room listening to Paulson speak. I’d rather be at an insurance seminar. This scene goes on for a good 20 minutes and I dozed off and on. I literally could not keep my eyes open. Shyamalan typed a long monologue, for Paulson’s character to explain a theory, on a word doc and proudly never edited it.

Revelations are slapped on at the end because god forbid Shyamalan concludes a story without a twist. The ending is as dumb as the film’s 4 note string background which is as dumb as Shyamalan’s script and the film as a whole. It comes from nowhere. It offersno irony and it’s never implied anywhere.

There’s nothing that McAvoy, Willis, Jackson or Paulson should feel proud of here. They stare. They grimace. They make claims on a misguided screenwriter’s behalf that what’s presented is something grander than the absence of storytelling this film suffers from.

Glass is poorly written, poorly edited and poorly directed. It’s a film that’s about as necessary as a sequel to Top Gun.

(Oh shit!!!! Now I’ve done it!!!!)