TV • PAGE 27
THE BULLETIN • APRIL 15 - 21, 2021
BY JAY BOBBIN
‘Glass’ shines enough against
its forerunners
Ever since his success with “The Sixth Sense,” which now goes back more than 20 years, it’s been clear that M.
Night Shyamalan is a filmmaker who likes to stretch. That hasn’t always worked, but two examples where it has
are “Unbreakable” and “Split.”
The writer-director merges characters and situations from those movies in “Glass,” named for the character
Samuel L. Jackson played in “Unbreakable.” He turns up again in the 2019 effort – which FX shows Wednesday,
April 21 – as does “Unbreakable’s” Bruce Willis, whose alter ego is a self-styled, special-powered vigilante on the
trail of the multiple-personality villain played by James McAvoy in “Split.”
McAvoy also reprises his role here, and it’s only a matter of time before all of those figures converge ... with
Sarah Paulson in another American horror story as a psychiatrist who surveys all of them. That may sound rather
dry, but don’t worry: The stuntmen and special-effects experts eventually earn their keep.
Shyamalan’s ambition with “Glass” is clear: It’s pretty bold for a moviemaker to go back to two of his earlier
projects and attempt to merge them, but the director has built something of a cinematic universe of his own. He
set the groundwork for “Glass” well, but the catch is to make
the combination work fully.
Bruce Willis
in “Glass”
Fans of “Unbreakable” likely will enjoy seeing Willis in
his role again as much as he appears to enjoy playing it
again. Indeed, he puts forth more conviction and energy
than he had in some time, and he was working quite a bit ...
which speaks to his relative level of interest in each piece of
material. Of course, he knew what he was getting into here,
having worked with Shyamalan before.
That also goes for Jackson and McAvoy, the latter of
whom actually is given the most to take and run with. That
could be a matter of his again playing several characters
rolled into one, but he’s the real protagonist of “Glass,” being
the fiend pursued by Willis. And he is still every bit the
fiend, though “Split” was overall a stronger story on its own,
the same argument that can be made for “Unbreakable.”
It certainly helps to have seen “Unbreakable” and/or
“Split” to get the most out of “Glass,” but it’s not an absolute
requirement. And in trying to cobble all of the pieces
together, Shyamalan makes “Glass” a reasonably satisfying
reflection of its former selves.
Solution on page 18