Glass *** (2019, James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L Jackson, Sarah Paulson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard) -Movie Review

I’m going to make this a personal reaction as I think the 2019 chiller Glass is a Marmite movie. You like it or you don’t. That’s it. Either reaction is valid and reasonable. I really enjoyed the eerie and disturbing Glass, writer-director M Night Shyamalan’s sequel to both Unbreakable and Split, in which his characters from the two films collide. It is a bold concept, and tricky to pull off, but, mostly, it works, not all of it, not all of the time, and not entirely overall, but enough.

James McAvoy, Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson are all great, re-creating their now iconic characters: split personality Kevin Wendell Crumb, unbreakable David Dunn and the enigmatic comic book fan Elijah Price (or Mr Glass). This time, with the help of his grown-up son Joseph, (Spencer Treat Clark), security guard David Dunn is using his supernatural abilities to track down Kevin Wendell Crumb, a disturbed serial killer with 24 personalities, including the superhuman figure of The Beast.

David Dunn saves four girls from Crumb’s clutches, but the cops arrive on the scene and they are both arrested and put away in an asylum, under the care of Dr Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), while Price lurks in the shadows, clearly up to something, but what? 

A mainstream horror thriller art movie, Glass looks and sounds fantastic on the IMAX screen. Shyamalan’s approach is to create a shiny style object, and that certainly works full time. It is a very good looking movie, with clever camerawork and a great soundtrack.

The script is another matter. I have to confess, I don’t think it made any sense, and in any case I didn’t understand it, but I really enjoyed the movie anyway, and stayed there with it for an engrossing 130 minutes. It never flags and never gets boring or even slightly dull. It is not very violent but it is quite unpleasant in places, and, in a low key kind of way, it creeped me out quite a bit.

Glass is not really a sci-fi mystery drama as advertised. It is a fairly full-on horror movie, and it leaves you with a few shivers down the spine afterwards, as well as feeling baffled and concluding that M Night Shyamalan must be a lot cleverer than you, or alternatively a lot less clever. The jury is still out on that one.

McAvoy’s split personality turn is quite brio. OK it is a bit show-off, but it is quite fun this time. Willis and Jackson are a lot less showy, but provide good balance, and are very effective. Thinking about it, the movie is a bit show-off too, but it is also quite a lot of fun.

Spencer Treat Clark and Charlayne Woodard are reprising their roles as Dunn’s son and Price’s mother, and Anya Taylor-Joy returns too as Casey Cooke, the only captive to survive an encounter with The Beast. All three are useful presences.

There are no extra scenes after the end credits start.

It topped the UK and Irish box office in its opening weekend, taking an estimated £3.425 million, and also took the number one spot in the US during the Martin Luther King four-day holiday weekend, taking $47 million.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com