Movie Review: GLASS

There’s simply no way to say this and not sound arrogant, so I’m just gonna say it. Those people who didn’t like this movie—I just don’t think they “got” it. Simple as that.

Okay, so it isn’t quite that simple, not where *all* of them are concerned. I shouldn’t make blanket statements. Only, those commoner critics who are saying that GLASS represents anything resembling a failure or a misstep, a fumble on the part of writer/director M. Night Shyamalan? Those people are just plain wrong. GLASS is a perfect movie. You hear that? A PERFECT movie. Everything Shyamalan does, he does purposefully. There’s a reason for it, an overreaching idea, and he executes it flawlessly. I grokked it. Not everyone else is grokking it. That’s a fair statement, I believe.

Think of it like this. Picasso is one of the greatest painters in human history. But not everyone digs his work. A lot of folks look at a Picasso painting and say, nah, no thanks, that isn’t for me. And that’s cool. Art is meant to be like that. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything *wrong* with that painting. It doesn’t mean Picasso made any mistakes or failed to achieve the statement he was attempting to make. It just means not everybody is going to like what he created. It’s a matter of taste, not proficiency. Does that make sense?

They’re saying GLASS is too unconventional, too philosophical. That Shyamalan focuses too much on the nature of comic books, the psychology of them, rather than focus on the plot of the movie. Do they think he did that on accident? They’re saying the middle of the film is too slow. What Shyamalan did was basically to switch the standard first and second acts. It was an unconventional choice, but do they honestly think he didn’t *mean* to do just that? They complained that the efforts of Sarah Paulson’s character to convince David, Elijah, and the Horde that they are just mentally unbalanced rather than superhuman “fails” because Shyamalan has already spent two movies showing the audience that his characters *are* superhuman. They don’t get that it isn’t the audience who is supposed to experience doubt, here, but the characters. It is *their* moment of doubt, not ours. And it makes perfect sense, given the motivations of the Sarah Paulson character. But I won’t say anything else about that, as I don’t want to give anything away.

For my werewolf marks, I will say that the Beast character here is even more of a true werewolf than he was in SPLIT. He does everything werewolf-ish except sprout hair. But there are so many other reasons why you should watch GLASS. It may not be what you were expecting, but leave those preconceived notions at home and open yourself to a cerebral examination of the comic book character and the purpose of fiction. And if you don’t love it like I did, that’s okay. We aren’t all going to dig on Picasso. But don’t make the mistake of seeing it as a failure on the part of the painter.

As for those de rigueur Shyamalan twist endings, there’s more than one of them in GLASS. There are two or even three, depending on how you qualify them. And as for that one part of the denouement that you aren’t going to like—you’ll know it when you see it—all I will say is, remember. This is a comic book story. And you know what always happens in the comics…

By The Evil Cheezman

WAYNE MILLER is the owner and creative director of EVIL CHEEZ PRODUCTIONS (www.evilcheezproductions.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/evilcheezproductions), specializing in theatrical performances and haunted attractions. He has written, produced and directed (and occasionally acted in) over a dozen plays, most of them in the Horror and Crime genres. His first novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER: WEREWOLF, is available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734763 MORTUI VELOCES SUNT!

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