Score: 3.5/5

With strong acting, and a plot that trusts the viewers intelligence, Glass is a fitting conclusion to M. Night Shyamalan’s take on superheroes.

This is the first time in a while where I watched a movie and felt like this was less a sequel and more a true continuation where we left off in a previous movie. Where other film sequels have a nod here or there, the degree to which Glass is interwoven into 2000’s Unbreakable and 2017’s Split is very impressive. It’s even more remarkable that one of these movies Glass is drawing from came out nearly two decades ago.

With that in mind it’s almost a requirement that you should watch these previous two movies to get the full appreciation of what this new entry is attempting to accomplish. I won’t spoil anything but the basic setup is that David Dunn (Bruce Willis) the security guard hero who can’t get hurt from Unbreakable is on the hunt to stop The Beast (James McAvoy) one of the 24 alter egos of Kevin Wendall Crumb from Split who has quite the taste for murdering young women. Throw into the mix the super genius villain Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), and Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) and this battle of good versus evil gets a tad complicated.

All that said I had watched Unbreakable and Split within the last six months and did not have a single problem following the plot. I was happy that Shyamalan trusted the viewer and didn’t need to spoon feed information for those catching up. By the end there are some typical Shyamalan twists, and I was all for them. I’m sure that will be the sticking point for many people, but they felt natural to the already established world of the last two movies. Sure I would have liked a different ending, but I also would like that in a million different movies.

Moving past the plot, another highlight I wanted to mention was the strong cast. James McAvoy is such a delight and it was a blast to see him play so many different personalities again. Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson both return and play to their strengths. This was Willis giving some effort, while Jackson fit right back into the comic obsessed character’s shoes from Unbreakable. Something I didn’t expect and was super happy to see was other cast members returning from Unbreakable, the kid who played Joseph Dunn, yeah it’s the same guy back again. Sarah Paulson was the new comer this time around and she plays the role of neutral antagonist well.

Finally two things I wanted to quickly mention. The visual design and score are the secret sauce to making this whole thing work so well. The use of colors in this movie is a real treat and the musical queues give scenes that extra punch to really nail it. Needless to say I really really liked Glass.