Glass

M. Night Shyamalan goes back to his roots and disappoints badly. In everything. Glass is a film that will probably make you a little embarrassed for the filmmaker himself. It looks televisual, but above all it's all incredibly stupid and self-aware at the same time. The twists and turns are absurd, the pacing is awfully slow and any attempts at philosophising are inhumanly off, and the decent Bruce Willis and James McAvoy can't pull it up to average. Watching Glass is like watching M. Night Shyamalan destroy his own legacy for two hours. And it's not a pretty sight. (16/01/2019)

The idea itself isn't bad, but its execution is, as with Split, mostly inadvertently ridiculous. I liked that the film wanted to work with comic stereotypes as much as the (great) Unbreakable, that unlike the previous picture it wasn't just a solo by the overacting James McAvoy and that I saw Bruce Willis in the movie theatre again. But there was still something grinding about it. Primarily in the prison... And then in front of it. Well, the introduction did look quite promising. (22/01/2019)

Mr. Shyamalan put a lot effort into this one. He works consistently with the dramatic potential of the three main characters and their deepening interactions, which bring them closer to one another in the same house. The story escalates and entertains by exploring and uncovering the essence of the brilliant theme (the magical idea of comic book heroes existing in real life) that he created 19 years ago and followed up on three years ago. As we’re accustomed to with him, he did it with abundant visual creativity and thematic references, while making two different points in the climax. But despite the fact that everything fits together in the first point and becomes conspiratorial in the right way, as well as original and bold when considering the viewer’s expectations, I’m not quite sure I wanted it that way. Not to mention the second point, which simply should not be there at all, because the movie absolutely doesn’t build up to it. (20/01/2019)

The biggest flop of the year? Quite possibly. I saw the film in the cinema two weeks ago and it smoked out of my head so quickly that I'm only writing about it now, and that doesn't bode damn well. I don't know if Shyamalan has family problems, is drowning in debt or has turned to drugs because after The Visit and Split it looked like he was back to where we wanted him to be, but now he's plummeting down again and has made perhaps the most boring film I've ever seen in the cinema. The acting aces did not please at all. James McAvoy overacts horribly and is not interesting at all, Bruce Willis is a clear candidate to the Golden Raspberry and Samuel L. Jackson unfortunately didn't say much. The film offers almost nothing. It's not action, horror, thriller, funny or suspenseful. It fits the drama, but it's properly tedious, visually unappealing and strangely overwrought at the end. A strange, uninteresting and unentertaining film and I hate that wholeheartedly. I felt like I went to a restaurant and ordered a beef steak medium well with mushrooms, asparagus and chips and ended up getting a steak well done with roast potatoes, carrots and salad. This is not how I imagined my first cinema visit this year. 30% (08/02/2019)

McAvoy and Willis are outstanding, as they finally have some good roles after a long time. Samuel L. Jackson doesn't take any chances, but he is surprisingly pushed into the background. Glass picks up nicely where we left off twenty years ago. Yes, times have changed since Unbreakable and maybe we don’t need another movie like that. But still it makes for a pleasant and down-to-earth contrast to today’s comic-book blockbusters. It works as it should, but it just lacks anything shocking after all of the X-Men movies. Even so, Shy offers solid and quite surprising twists. This had to have been an unpleasant surprise for those who have only seen Split, but not Unbreakable. They wouldn't be able to make heads or tails out of it. (20/01/2019)