There’s no point watching Glass if you haven’t seen Unbreakable and Split.
Sometimes you can jump into a sequel without having seen its predecessors – but this is definitely not one of those cases.
In fact, it would be worth rewatching Unbreakable if you haven’t seen it for a few years because you’ll struggle to follow at least half of the action in Glass if you’re not up to date with the universe established in the 2000 film.
The new M. Night Shyamalan film movie together the stories and characters introduced in the two earlier films.
Bruce Willis’ seemingly invincible David Dunn, his arch-nemesis mastermind Elijah ‘Mr Glass’ Price (Samuel L Jackson) and James McAvoy’s serial-killing Kevin Crumb (with all 23 of his distinct personalities) are confined to the same psychiatric facility in this film.
Sarah Paulson’s specialist Dr Ellie Staple is tasked with trying to free these men of their particular delusion of grandeur – they believe they are superheroes, or of superhuman ability.
The movie itself is not as good as either Split or Unbreakable. It has a whole lot of set-up and then a climax that is both underwhelming and over-the-top at the same time.
Glass runs for far too long and only tells the audience what its trying to say in the last few minutes.
But despite all this, there is one huge reason you should watch it: James McAvoy.
That this man has not won an Oscar or any other award of note (barring the BAFTA rising star gong) is a travesty of the highest order.
McAvoy plays so many different characters not just within this film, but within a single scene, a single conversation. His transformation from the wannabe hip-hop star nine-year-old Hedwig to creepy matron Patricia, from the animalistic Beast to the real man beneath it all, Kevin, is truly remarkable.
McAvoy puts so much into his performance and yet the genre of the film means it will never be given a look-in by the folks that hand out awards.
Aside from McAvoy, another big plus in Glass is the production design and use of colours. Shyamalan is trying to create a grounded, real-world superhero universe and he does this subtly with his design choices.
