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Even by M Night Shyamalan’s usual standards, Glass is a deeply weird movie. It’s the third and final movie in the Unbreakable trilogy, and features a super-villain with multiple personalities who’s keeping a bunch of cheerleaders hostage so he can feed them to a supernatural beast. And that’s not the weirdest thing about the film, which is available on Netflix.
As Vague Visages put it, “it’s one of the strangest, most daring superhero movies out there.” It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it’s quite something. And James McAvoy’s performance is incredible.
What did the critics make of Glass?
Reviews have been very mixed: Deep Focus Review called it “among Shyamalan’s worst films” while The Cinematic Review said it “should be a staple of how not to conclude a trilogy”. Empire was more forgiving, though, and while it didn’t shy away from the movie’s flaws it praised McAvoy’s performance and said that “Shyamalan remains an ambitious, interesting director, shooting close-ups with Dutch angles and imbuing even the talky scenes with a palpable sense of trepidation”.
The New Yorker wasn’t so kind, calling it a “peculiar” and “unsatisfying” movie but saying that it was nevertheless a fascinating thing to watch: “the characters provide commentary in the course of the film – asides and declarations about the nature of superhero stories and where the plot points at hand fit into the archetypal schema – that undergirds the action, sets out the characters’ motives, and defines the drama’s stakes.”
The New York Times praised the cast – “Jackson and especially Willis remind you again of how fine they can be when asked for more than booming shtick and smirk” – but said that “in time, the air of misterioso quiet and encroaching, consuming terror give way to manly growling, jaw-clenching and vein-popping, and everything falls to pieces in a poorly conceptualized and staged blowout.” Despite this, “for the most part, there is enough in the movie – creeping cameras, off-kilter boos, eye-popping mauve and especially its three male leads – to offset the longueurs, obvious filler and rickety plotting.”
It may not be one of the best Netflix movies today, but if you loved Unbreakable, and followed it up with Split, it’s well worth rounding out one of the longest and most surprising superhero trilogies we’ve ever had.