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Glass (2019)

Started by surreal, January 20, 2019, 08:18:17 AM

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surreal

I know some discussion was started in the M.Night thread, but I figured I should start one anyway.  Saw this yesterday morning and was pretty disappointed.  I'll hide potential spoilers but will keep them light anyway.

It started out really well and quite moody but just fell to pieces about 30 mins in.  Ended up actually really reminding me of the end of season 1 of "Heroes". Big ideas but no budget to keep up with them, with the climactic battle having been built up during the movie as going to take place in / on the city's tallest building actually ends up being about half a dozen people in the hospital car park. The ending was explained more than shown, and not very well either, and made very little sense.

The majority of dialogue is very poor, lots of silly talk about comic books (not that the comics are silly, just the phrasing of the dialogue), and Sarah Paulson and James McAvoy get the vast majority of it.  To be fair, McAvoy does do a great job again, switching between personalities instantly.  For her part, Anya Taylor Joy is ok but wasted - I'm wondering if MNS was going for a "beauty and the beast" thing at the end. 

2 / 5 for this one.  They really should have left "Unbreakable" alone, but the connection to "Split" will have got a lot of people hyped for this and it will leave a lot of them disappointed, or worse, completely confused about wtf is going on.  Anyone who sees this without seeing Unbreakable will be totally lost.

Shit Good Nose

The twist in this is he was made of shatterproof plastic all along.

I thought this was absolute shit and every time McAvoy had to play Hedwig or The Beast I was stifling laughter. Willis sleepwalks through it. Jackson is Jackson. I actually did burst out laughing in disbelief at the ending, which was met with some loud tuts in my screening.

Timothy

This was great. Great ending to the trilogy and awesome ending. Recommended.

St_Eddie

Quote from: worldsgreatestsinner on January 20, 2019, 12:47:34 PM
I actually did burst out laughing in disbelief at the ending, which was met with some loud tuts in my screening.

Well, yes.  If you will laugh as you drop your trousers and moon the back row, you've got to expect a tut or twenty.  Especially when you haven't even bothered to wipe your arse.

That is basically what the film does

Timothy

Cant agree. Great movie with a lot of unexpected and awesome twists.

phantom_power

Is the twist at the end that this is an origin story for an avant garde pianist and composer?

Rev+

If it was half an hour shorter I'd have liked it more, but we're in that hospital for a full hour when we know from the first second they'll escape.  We're treading water for far too long.

I do have to respect a film that, in the age of Marvel and DC and Transformers and such staging bigger and bigger CGI battles, essentially ends in a bit of a square go in a car park.

Load of shite, and MNS's best film for years.

kidsick5000

Compared to Split, where the changes in character were more nuanced, James McAvoy seems to be doing an impression of himself in Split.
In fact for any character outside of The Beast, he seems to be channelling Tom Hiddleston on a chat show. ("Tom, I hear you can do lots of voices" "YES I CAN")

Quote from: Rev+ on January 21, 2019, 12:26:23 AM
We're treading water for far too long.

Oh yeah. Are we ever. There's a difference between low-key and boredom. For so many of his films, you end up waiting for the film to catch up to the realisations you made.

Split was far more enjoyable.

The ending was so muted, it felt like MNS was bored of his own creations. Making sure there'll be no questions of sequels. And don't wait until the end. There's no end credit shimmer of super abilities from the next generation.

It does feel in part to be a commentary on what he sees as big, empty, over-powered superhero films.



Dusty Substance


Unbreakable has long been a favourite of mine and when the twist came at the end of Split I almost cried with joy - I think it's the greatest twist in the history of cinema - So I was pretty stoked for Glass.

Went to see it opening day, first screening to avoid any chance of spoilers.

Spoilers ahoy.

It subverted so many expectations that I just wasn't quite sure what to make of it and I didn't want it to end (apparently it was edited down from a three and half hour cut, which we'll hopefully get to see on BluRay). After a couple of days of thought and analysis, I've concluded that I actually love it. It would've been nice to see a bit more of 'The Overseer' in action, and I found it frustrating that SLJ didn't speak until over an hour into it - Also, the promise of a fight at a city landmark didn't deliver, but the car park showdown fits much more into the 'grounded reality' the trilogy has been going for. I reckon the three films will come to be heralded as superhero classics  in decades to come and are far more likely to be used as examples for teaching the genre rather than the very enjoyable but mostly action orientated Marvel Movies.

P.S - Anyone remember Will Smith's Hancock? Am I mis-remembering, or was that better than it was given credit for.





hermitical

Quote from: Dusty Substance on January 22, 2019, 04:01:18 AM
Unbreakable has long been a favourite of mine and when the twist came at the end of Split I almost cried with joy - I think it's the greatest twist in the history of cinema - So I was pretty stoked for Glass.

Went to see it opening day, first screening to avoid any chance of spoilers.

Spoilers ahoy.


I love Unbreakable, can you say if you liked this? I've been very disciplined and not read your main paragraph.

Mister Six

Dusty said:

QuoteAfter a couple of days of thought and analysis, I've concluded that I actually love it.

notjosh

Quote from: surreal on January 20, 2019, 08:18:17 AM
The majority of dialogue is very poor, lots of silly talk about comic books (not that the comics are silly, just the phrasing of the dialogue), and Sarah Paulson and James McAvoy get the vast majority of it.  To be fair, McAvoy does do a great job again, switching between personalities instantly.  For her part, Anya Taylor Joy is ok but wasted - I'm wondering if MNS was going for a "beauty and the beast" thing at the end. 

Mostly agree with your post, particularly this. I think the idea (first mooted in Unbreakable I think) that comic books are echoes of real stories passed down through human history is perfectly fine, and watching Bruce Willis' journey towards acceptance in the first film is great. But when it gets to the point in Glass where they're reading comic books to figure out what happens next in real life I think it gets a bit silly and starts to feel like like one of those Dan Brown movies.

I like what he tried to do though, and I'm hoping I find more to enjoy in a rewatch. Still a million times more interesting and distinctive than the current crop of Marvels.

notjosh

Quote from: Dusty Substance on January 22, 2019, 04:01:18 AM
Unbreakable has long been a favourite of mine and when the twist came at the end of Split I almost cried with joy - I think it's the greatest twist in the history of cinema

I wouldn't go that far, but I do agree it was a very exciting and (I believe) unique way to present a sequel.

Shit Good Nose

Quote
P.S - Anyone remember Will Smith's Hancock? Am I mis-remembering, or was that better than it was given credit for.

No, it remains a film with very mixed reviews.  Its problem (that remains to this day) is that the tone is all over the place - it can't make up its mind whether it wants to be a superhero spoof, a superhero comedy, a superhero action film or a superhero drama, and Peter Berg didn't have the confidence or courage of his convictions to make one, some or all of those, and its especially obviously so when you think of any of the better Marvel films which have done all of those much more successfully.  It also doesn't push boundaries enough in the way that Deadpool did, given that it too was aimed at adults.

I know it's grown quite a cult following over the years, but that doesn't get around the tonal and genre problems.

Funcrusher

I guess under the circumstances the time probably isn't right for a reappraisal of Leonard Part 6.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Funcrusher on January 22, 2019, 06:58:34 PM
I guess under the circumstances the time probably isn't right for a reappraisal of Leonard Part 6.

Such a shame we'll never see parts one to five...

It says a lot when the best bit of a film is Bill Cosby splashing on aftershave in slow motion.

kidsick5000

Quote from: Dusty Substance on January 22, 2019, 04:01:18 AM
P.S - Anyone remember Will Smith's Hancock? Am I mis-remembering, or was that better than it was given credit for.

It's a film of two halves. The premise was to be a lot sleazier (it was based on a story Tonight, He Comes - all puns intended - and from what's available online, it's just as well they went in another direction. It's pretty grim.)
The rehabilitation of a slob superhero is pretty entertaining (see also the Alan Arkin/Christopher Lee oddity The Return of Captain Invincible) but they get through it by the halfway mark and brought in a new thread that makes no sense.
Smith and Theron are exes - from ancient times. But for some reason, Gods can't be in the vicinity of each other because they lose their powers. (the exact vicinity is variable depending on what situation the writers need to get out of).
It's a real cut-and-shut job that doesn't know where to go.


surreal

Quote from: notjosh on January 22, 2019, 01:58:05 PM
I like what he tried to do though, and I'm hoping I find more to enjoy in a rewatch. Still a million times more interesting and distinctive than the current crop of Marvels.

Agreed, thinking back I really wanted to like it, and I'm hoping there may be a longer cut on the dvd eventually maybe as a trilogy thing - I guess they may need to do something like that to recoup some of the budget.  Any indication what kind of business it's been doing so far?

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: surreal on January 25, 2019, 03:43:00 PM
Agreed, thinking back I really wanted to like it, and I'm hoping there may be a longer cut on the dvd eventually maybe as a trilogy thing - I guess they may need to do something like that to recoup some of the budget.  Any indication what kind of business it's been doing so far?

Well, it grossed twice its production budget over the opening weekend, so...


Bad Ambassador

Quote from: StewartLeehaslethimselfgo on January 25, 2019, 09:03:04 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTklK82aaTE

Bad-ish review from RedLetter, cant disagree

Not bad-ish at all, I thought. Far more mixed-positive.