Glass: 2019’s The Village

Image Courtesy of Hindustan Times and Universal Pictures

Image Courtesy of Hindustan Times and Universal Pictures

Ashton T. Livingston, Entertainment Editor

     Glass is the sequel to both Split and Unbreakable. Both movies are really, really good. I love Split and Unbreakable, so I went in to this movie hoping I’d get an awesome emotional conclusion to both of those movies, but instead I got 2019’s The Village. What I mean by this is it’s good until M. Night Shyamalan’s infamous twists. Granted Shyamalan can pull of a twist. It’s what the man’s known for but once he hit a certain spot well, we started getting Lady in the Water and The Last Airbender.

      Glass starts off solid. The movie grabs you and draws you in. Each character has something that draws you in. Then it goes from that to an interesting idea that maybe these characters we think of as superheroes aren’t super, but instead perceive themselves as superhuman. That is actually pretty interesting and could be an entire twist on its own! The movie keeps going with this idea until our antagonist Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) and The Horde (James McAvoy) free David Dunn or The Overseer (Bruce Willis), then we get a pretty cool low budget fight that is filmed okay. The thought is not fight not just of superhuman braun but of brain. Here we get our first of many twists which is one that actually works.

      The first twist of the film is one that’s pretty good so I won’t spoil it because it’s that good. Unlike some of the other “twists”. Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), tries to convince our leads that they have no powers. As I stated before I found this to be an interesting premise. SPOILERS AHEAD Turns our they are superhuman and that Sarah Paulson’s character is part of a secret society that tries to hide superhumans and tries to convince them they aren’t superhuman so they stop. Why did you feel the need to do that movie. You could’ve just had a character who believes they believe their superhuman so they do this stuff. That’s an interesting character and then you can have their world be shattered as it turns out they really are that way. That’d be cool. This whole thing of there being a secret society is kind of dumb and just pulled me out of the movie entirely END OF SPOILERS.

       Once the movie hit this twist the movie fell apart. The film began trying to justify this twist over and over while still maintaining the idea that there is an opposite to everything. It does do that but while doing so drags on and on. The movie ends about three to four times. The movie could’ve ended the same way but you take out the stupid twist. M. Night Shyamalan is known for his twists, good or bad, but he needs to realize that not every single movie needs one. Now I explain why I call this The Village of 2019. The Village is a film made by the same director about a village plagued by a monster. Cool premise and it’s well done. Turns out monster isn’t real and they’re living in a state park in modern day, the movie was good until the twist.

         All the actors in the film do fantastic jobs and I have respect for all of them. Except maybe David Dunn’s son. The actor is the same from Unbreakable but somehow his acting got weaker? It’s not noticeable in most scenes just a few but it’s nothing awful. He’s just okay. James McAvoy and Samuel L. Jackson (for how little he is in it) are the show stealers here. They give the movie their all. Bruce Willis is Bruce Willis. He’s good no matter what.

         Overall the film is okay. It’s good until the movie hits you with a sour after taste. The ending twist really kinda left a bad taste in my mouth that ruined the ending for me. Had it not been for a bad twist I believe this movie would have been a solid movie much like the other films in its series. Glass is an good movie if not for its twist. All its promises to be the epic conclusion to the trilogy we didn’t know we needed are almost fulfilled. I give Glass a C. Had it not been for the twist and several endings I would have enjoyed this movie a lot more. Glass is PG-13 for action and language.