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Plot Summary: Security guard David Dunn uses his supernatural abilities to track Kevin Wendell Crumb, a disturbed man who has twenty-four personalities.

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Writer: M. Night Shyamalan

Runtime: 2h 9min

Main Cast:

• Anna Taylor-Joy as Casey Cooke
• James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb/The Beast/Patricia/Dennis/Hedwig/Barry/Jade/Orwell/Heinrich/Norma
• Sarah Paulson as Dr. Ellie Staple
• Bruce Willis as David Dunn
• Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price / Mr. Glass
• Spencer Treat Clark as Joseph Dunn

Review by: Mia

Glass is the third installation in a superhero trilogy (Eastrail 177), written and directed by one of the most interesting minds ever to produce for Hollywood. M. Night Shyamalan is well known for his compelling plots, psychological thrillers, and dark explorations of the human psyche. To me, an avid fan of both superhero archetypes, psychological storytelling, and M. Night Shyamalan, this film would reprise a much appreciated universe that embraced strong foundations for a great action thriller. M. Night Shyamalan is not the only creator in Hollywood to provide alternatives to the popular DC and Marvel universes that still get the Superhero right. However, his concept accomplishes much in its contribution to cinematic superhero franchise history. The first installation in the Eastrail 177 Trilogy is listed as #4 on Time Magazine's Top Superhero Movies of all time and also made Quentin Tarantino's top 20 films made since 1992. 

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Unbreakable is an origin story that provides us our first glimpses of both David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), both of which are reprised in Glass. In Unbreakable, we learn what fuels these two major characters and how they come to view themselves as the hero and villain of their universe. The film focuses on Dunn’s journey to heroism from “regular” life as a Home Security supplier. Elijah Price, who embraces (rather ironically) his alter ego “Mr. Glass,” suffers from a condition that makes his bones as fragile as glass but does nothing to hinder his super genius mental capacity. Price is on the search for his “hero counterpart,” certain that for every super, there is an opposite in existence. He creates disasters on his search for his counterpart, eventuallly thrusting Dunn into danger in the Eastrail 177 Train Crash, a crash that ended with only one survivor: Dunn, proving Dunn’s extraordinary abilities that allowed him to survive and how he stands apart from others with his super strength, extrasensory perception, and preternatural resilience. Dunn and his son must come to terms with the revelation that not only do supers exist, but Dunn is himself one able to stand up for those who face crimes and abuse should he choose. His only weakness, as all heroes must have, is water, which functions much like Kryptonite does to Superman: reducing his strength and resilience as he comes into contact with it.

In Unbreakable’s first sequel – Split, we see another villain, Kevin Wendell Crumb aka “The Horde,” through his own origin story kidnapping and murdering young “impure” girls who have never known the suffering that would make them pure. We only see David Dunn at the end, connecting Crumb’s terrifying beast-like abilities to the universe where supers exist and villains are motivated by their own twisted pasts to incite chaos, destruction, and pain. This glimpse of David Dunn makes us wonder where he has been and how he has faced the world since putting Elijah Price away in a mental institute for his terrorist crimes. Unlike The Horde, Price does not have super strength, cannibalism, or multiple personalities on his side. Instead, he is a villain solely formed on his cunning. He is a strategist capable of influencing events so well that he kills hundreds from with only the work accomplished with his fingertips, too fragile to ever actually use his own body to commit violence, but still killing more than a strength-infused beast like The Horde with his adeptness at predicting disasters and technological mishaps. 

Split stands so independently from the first film of the trilogy that I had to wonder how the two films would come together in the final installation of the trilogy. How does The Horde (James McAvoy) factor into the standoff between Dunn and Price? One can only hope that Price’s unmatched cunning further drives the plot of these two films into a final movie that surpasses both of its predecessors in concept and execution. This final film would focus solely on Mr. Glass and his actions in the way that the first two films provide us with a first row experience of Dunn and Crumb.

Despite my anticipation, I skipped the trailer. I had quite enough to get me interested. Shyamalan has proven his understanding of superhero archetypes and his skill in creating villains that quite easily make your skin crawl. The cast is powerful. Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, and James McAvoy are accomplished actors in action, thriller, and horror genres across the board. 

Into the theater I walked ready to see them all in action. The film begins where Split left off. David Dunn has heard of The Horde and has taken it upon himself to hunt down the serial killer with his extrasensory perception and the help of his self-appointed Detective of a son, an adult Joseph Dunn. He goes on “Walks,” touching those within areas they suspect the killer to frequent in hopes of locating The Horde and his currently missing victims. Eventually, their search is successful and the first showdown between “The Overseer” and “The Horde” occurs. This showdown is interrupted by the arrival of the police, led by Dr. Ellie Staple, a specialist in those with delusions of grandeur convincing them that their unique experiences somehow make them super. She believes that they are suffering from a sort of comic book influenced illusion and takes them to the Psychiatric Institute that already houses another deluded patient: Elijah Price.

Dr. Staple locks each patient away in rooms equipped with their perceived weaknesses and begins her work to cure them of their delusions. Each is visited by a cherished person: Price by his mother; Dunn by his son; and Crumb by one of his surviving teenage victims, who clearly has Stockholm Syndrome but why treat that when there are superhumans to psycho-analyze? Price is kept heavily sedated into a heavy stupor to prevent his outsmarting the doctors and nurses and escaping his confinement. Dr. Staple plans to perform a laser surgery to his frontal lobe to cure him of his delusions of being a Mastermind. She has similar plans for Dunn and Crumb if they cannot be snapped out of their own superhuman delusions. She provides scientific explanations for everything that they have ever experienced and seems to want only to bring them back into society as functioning minds.

A series of events unfolds, seemingly at the hand of a clever Mr. Glass, resulting in the fight between the three supers and the authorities directed by Dr. Staple to reduce the damage of their actions. The battle here is psychological: do supers really exist and if so, are these three living breathing documented examples for the world to see? If you ask Mr. Glass, it is imperative that this be proved and shared with the world. However, Dr. Staple believes something else entirely. Dunn is only concerned with stopping evil while Crumb wants to purify as many as possibly of their lack of suffering.

What I Liked:

M. Night Shyamalan has proven many times over his skill at compelling an audience with his knowledge of comic-style storytelling. He continues to do so in Glass. Throughout the film, we are provided with the comic themes that fuel the interactions between the characters. It is woven directly into the investigation of these superhumans and helps us understand the logic behind much of what the characters are motivated to do. Joseph Dunn, Mama Price, and even Casey (Stockholm) Cooke, utilize the history of comics to predict the series of events unfolding at Mr. Glass’s hands. As these comic themes build the plot, Dr. Staple and Mr. Glass contribute very heavily to the psychological side of the plot, making both us and every character question the extraordinary feats that they have witnessed over the lives of our three superhuman patients. Mr. Glass is undeniably the Mastermind behind the events of this third film. We see in his eyes and in his actions how committed he is to accomplishing his villainy. I appreciate a good villain to a good superhero.

I like that we follow the characters through their struggles with identity, right up until the peak of their origin stories where they all converge in a fight to end or begin the world’s understand of what is and isn’t super. Of course, this film focuses most on Mr. Glass’s contribution to everyone’s understanding of super abilities and the conflict between Dunn and Crumb, who until now have never encountered anyone who could match their strength and possibly affect what they believe to be their purpose in the world. Dunn, much like many of Willis’s roles throughout the years, is solemn but resolute. Crumb is a force to be reckoned with, a man with 23 minds all with their own identities, their own knowledge, and their own inner conflict between supporting and thwarting The Horde, the 23rd mind and the beast responsible for killing-and eating-young innocents. James McAvoy does an outstanding job juggling multiple personalities in Glass as well, constantly switching between different voices, mannerisms, and intensities at the drop of a dime. I think he was a great choice for the role and he did an amazing job of endearing us (and his teenage victim) to a cold-blooded maniac. 

Glass and Shyamalan continue to utilize cinematic techniques that heighten the comic book themes as well. For color changes to the way that different action sequences are shot from wide angles to give a recognizable comic strip appeal, especially in scenes where we watched playback of recorded events viewed by the characters themselves (ie/spoiler: security footage or Dunn’s extrasensory visions).

What I Didn’t Like:

Casey Cooke was an outstanding character in Split. She was clever and complex in how her character’s background made her uniquely resilient to the circumstances of being kidnapped by a DID individual with superhuman strength and cannibalism. You wanted to root for her every step of the way. In Glass, however, Casey is weirdly attached to her attacker, seemingly pulled back to him by nothing more than her odd understanding of his broken mind. Her Stockholm Syndrome is to be immediately accepted and built on as the story continues. Her somewhat inappropriate relationship with Kevin Wendell Crumb (and his personality Hedwig) are to be accepted as a fact of her life and seen as vital to how the good guys face off against The Horde. I am just not sure why we were meant to see this relationship as easy to swallow in order to allow her character room in the film as one of the main supporting characters of the events that unfold. She and the other relatives of the supers are glorified plot devices throughout the film. Yes, they are useful and often vital components of the story, but ultimately her proximity to her super is a lot harder to rationalize than the mother and the son who can forgive any inexplicable actions of their loved ones.

The final act of this film sort of unravels into chaos in ways that both help and hurt the plot. We experience misdirection that seems to be the intent of Mr. Glass, but often results in incomplete development of details vital to what we have been invested in up until this point. The Overseer is a bit of an incomplete hero, reluctant to the very last second of the fight and never quite evolving into the superhero who is admired by those he saves. He remains only a prop in what is the vision of Mr. Glass. The end of this trilogy introduces a pretty major concept that we are supposed to accept will never be touched upon again since this is the conclusion of the trilogy. 19 years worth of time, three movies, and maybe ten minutes with one of the most interesting elements of the story. Not only is this concept introduced, it is the backbone of a comic book mythology twist that I absolutely would have liked to see more of earlier in the film. Sure, we get to sit through a lot of fanfare about the existence of comic book obsession and delusions rooted in comic book appreciation, but it isn’t until the very end of this story that this comic book tradition is given more depth. True to Shyamalan tradition, this plot twist resonates throughout the entirety of the Eastrail 177 concept and makes the audience question everything that they have witnessed up until this point. I would consider the end satisfying. This is one of Shyamalan’s more interesting plot twists and succeeds better than films like The Happening or The Village did in making the events of the film even more justified. However, I think the twist came too little too late in the film overall. I could go on more about the elements of the plot in the third act that fell short to me, but too many spoilers would be involved and I do not believe in those. In short, the climax and resolution of this film felt far more rushed than the first two acts which were a slow burn of appreciable pacing. 

Images Courtesy of IMDB