GLASS - M. Night Blows It AGAIN?!?

[AndyDursin]

Newton Howard went out of Shyamalan's price range a while ago, so probably not.

Like I said I don't know if it's going to be the end of anything for him though. So long as he produces movies on small budgets and they remain profitable, he's going to get work. SPLIT cost $9 million and took in $250 mil+ worldwide. GLASS reportedly only cost $20 million. Even with potentially dismal word of mouth and a fast dropoff, it stands to be profitable very quickly.

There's a model out there for what SPLIT and A QUIET PLACE did at the box-office, and there will be takers in Hollywood who will fund Shyamalan provided he stays in range. I can't see them ever entrusting him with a big budget again though. GLASS may well reinforce that, as it seemed like this movie was "another chance" for him to show his stuff off, and it apparently fails dismally.

[Monterey Jack]

-Glass (2019): 7/10



Is it the grand culmination of a mapped-out twenty-year plan from bipolar filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan? Or just a collossal, troll-level prank? I'm...not quite sure. The intermittently-talented writer/director continues to show that, no matter how risible his screenplay, he knows how to generate and maintain tension with carefully-orchestrated camera moves, and James MacAvoy's turn as "The Horde" continues to impress. Yet Bruce Willis performs in his usual I-don't-give-a-crap coma, and the ultimate outcome of the film's convoluted plot plays like a twist wrapped in an emigma and seemingly designed to DELIBERATELY avoid expected payoffs in much the same way The Last Jedi did, and the film's harsh reviews and poor audience reactions prove that how we react to cinema is less based on what unspools before our eyes in the moment than what we're conditioned to EXPECT via marketing and obsessive fan speculation. It's a handsome, generally well-acted film that definitely won't go where most hope it will, but the film's confounding resolution is also sort of refreshing in an era of megabudget overkill (even if the intentions of a particular character don't really hold water when you examine them later). It's definitely not one of Shyamalan's trademark turkeys, however, and is worth seeing as the finale to this very odd "franchise".

[AndyDursin]

But does it make a picture "good" simply because it "defies someone's expectations"? It might make it audacious but it can also make it stupid and unsatisfying. It is possible to be all of those things at once.

[Monterey Jack]

But does it make a picture "good" simply because it "defies someone's expectations"? It might make it audacious but it can also make it stupid and unsatisfying. It is possible to be all of those things at once.

That is true, which is why I wrote I was not quite sure to make of the film. I actually found the intentions of the ending kind of moving, despite the Machivellian plot convolutions (and how the "facts" it presented to the public could be easilly discounted by a jaded viewer), but the way it sets up a far more elaborate climax, and intentionally yanks the rug out from under the viewer, is gonna piss off a LOT of people the way The Last Jedi's treatment of Luke and Rey's character arcs did after the set-up from The Force Awakens. And yet, for a "superhero" movie, I'm glad it did NOT go for the "elaborate" (aka "expensive") climax we've become numbed to over the last fifteen years, and that Shyamalan took this risk. He's probably gonna kill his career AGAIN, and people will hate him for a while while they whine about what they "wanted" to see, but, like how everyone hated Unbreakable when it first came out for not being the Sixth Sense-style supernatural thriller that the ads promised and "tricked" them into seeing a stealth superhero movie, Glass will find more appreciative audience once the dust settles and there's a few years' perspective on the whole thing.

[AndyDursin]

Based on what you and others are saying on either end of the scale, I feel like this movie is way too late to the party in terms of what he's pushing in terms of a concept. If he goes small its HEROES. If he does big (which I figured he wasnt doing to begin with) its every single superhero movie we've seen over the last two decades. As much as I didnt care for UNBREAKABLE personally because I found it ponderous and self indulgent, it did something different at the time of its release that was fresh for its era. That's obviously gone now.

Movies are made to make money and films like these had better keep the audience happy. If he cant deliver to whatever fanbase he has left, or makes a movie not "for them," then this is basically a film he made for himself (and I read he financed it with his own cash I guess, so that very much may be accurate). Directors tend to reap the consequences whenever that happens.

I know I've written this before too, but Shyamalan also strikes me as someone who should have had a writing partner. He's someone who has some good ideas but a knack for misjudging his filmmaking talents which results in some bafflingly awkward moments and poorly designed concepts across many (most?) of his films. He's talented yet not nearly as brilliant as he thinks he is, and should have been willing to work with other people, who would have been able to say "no" to some of his poor ideas and rework stilted dialogue that marks too much of his work. You would have thought after a total wipeout like LADY IN THE WATER that he would've learned that lesson.

[Monterey Jack]

I know I've written this before too, but Shyamalan also strikes me as someone who should have had a writing partner. He's someone who has some good ideas but a knack for misjudging his filmmaking talents which results in some bafflingly awkward moments and poorly designed concepts across many (most?) of his films. He's talented yet not nearly as brilliant as he thinks he is, and should have been willing to work with other people, who would have been able to say "no" to some of his poor ideas and rework stilted dialogue that marks too much of his work. You would have thought after a total wipeout like LADY IN THE WATER that he would've learned that lesson.

Owen Gleiberman just wrote a nice piece about the same problem.

https://variety.com/2019/film/columns/m ... 203112911/

Agreed that Shyamalan's tin ear for dialogue has always been his Achilles Heel, even in his handful of "good" films like Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Split. I sometimes wonder if he might have a twinge of Asperger's, because the way characters converse with each other in his films never feel like the way people actually talk (like that weird exchange about the "repast" of reheated chicken leftovers Shyamalan himself is eating in his Split cameo, the only distractingly awkward moment in that film). How any established screenwriter -- an Oscar nominee in the category no less! -- could write a line like "Be scientific, douchebag!", and actually keep it all the way up until the final draft of a screenplay and onto a movie playing on 2,000+ screens across the country is just baffling to me. It's like comparing the dialogue in the Star Wars OT (where George Lucas just came up with the story ideas and had them fleshed out by other screenwriters, even the first film that was mostly the work of an uncredited Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck) and the prequels, where Lucas was the sole writer, and boy, did it show. Compare Han Solo slyly pitching woo at Princess Leia in The Empire Strikes Back ("Scoundrel. Scoundrel! I like the sound of that."), and Anakin droning on about the coarse nature of sand in Attack Of The Clones while staring creepily at Padme's creamy shoulders. People bagged on poor Hayden Christensen for his wooden, charisma-deprived performances in the Prequels, but, honestly, Marlon Brando in his prime could not have given any life to the dialogue that Christensen was forced to deliver (or, as Harrison Ford was reported to have said to Lucas, "You can WRITE this [expletive], but you can't SAY it!").

[Paul MacLean]

Glass (3/10)

A total bore, with endless, talky sequences, mostly limited to handful of interior locations, and little to keep the viewer engaged. I even fell asleep at one point.

I never thought the premise of these movies was believable in the first place -- that Jackson's recognition of Willis' superpowers was entirely down to the act that Jackson reads comics. But what kind of world is this? Are there other superheros out there, which we never see? If so, why not (because the budget won't cover it)? And why do comic books provide the definitive understanding of superheros in this scenario, as opposed to scientists?

Also, if the psychiatrist is trying to convince the three characters that they are delusional about their superhero abilities -- why does she have preventative countermeasures in place (the water jets, the strobe lights) to guard against the superpowers which they "don't have"?

In fairness, it's an incredibly well-acted film -- McAvoy in particular exhibits an astonishing range as a schizophrenic with ten distinct personalities -- but the story gives them nothing to do. And to me the script didn't defy expectations. It culminated with the usual "epic battle" -- which just wasn't very complex or interesting (or epic). I hated the score too, which was the usual "mood tones" and dull, repetitive minimalist drones.

I think Shyamalin is trying to create his own version of X-Men -- which is kind of a fool's errand when you consider the decades-old fan base for the X-Men, and the popular, dominant juggernaut which is Marvel Comics (to say nothing of the massive production value of all the Marvel efforts). In fact the best part of my evening's trip to the cinema was the trailer for the next X-Men sequel.

[Eric W.]

It seems like it was all over on Signs. The moment M. Night did the "on screen reveal" leading to the climax of the movie... that was it. It was just downhill ever since and after that. That movie (for me) was very well done for the most part right up until that alien reveal.

Am I right or wrong about that in 20-20 hindsight?

[mkaroly]

Personally I thought SIGNS was his last best movie...enjoyed that one from start to finish, did not mind the alien reveal. The last JNH score to one of his movies I liked was THE VILLAGE (the film...meh...can take it or leave it). Where things turned for me was the pretentious and completely self-indulgently arrogant THE LADY IN THE WATER....so offensively bad and conceited. I gave a few films afterward a chance just on the off-chance I over-reacted to LADY, but they were all awful (culminating in THE HAPPENING which was so bottom of the basement bad that I can't even find appropriate words to describe it). I will never spend money on another one of his projects again.

I do agree with Andy that he missed a huge opportunity to make his films infinitely better by working with other writers. He needed that outside input to keep him in check - Andy's comments a few posts up nails it right on the head.

[AndyDursin]

I also feel SIGNS is Shyamalan's best piece of work. Mel Gibson is superb and Joaquin Phoenix was terrific opposite him. Newton Howard's score is the best he ever wrote too IMO. I didn't have an issue with the ending reveal per se -- I think the problem with it is that we were all so conditioned to him delivering on some kind of twist back then, he felt the need to try another "gotcha" kind of ending. As it is, it doesn't pull the rug out from under the viewer, but it's a little bit contrived in terms of "putting the pieces together", like he HAD to deliver that kind of moment. Still it worked fine for me.

In terms of an overall story, I felt Shyamalan wrote a fine script, and the last shot was just really well done. Emotionally and otherwise, I think it's a great movie that plays to Shyamalan's strengths with believable, well-rounded characters going through emotional turmoil of different kinds (extraterrestrial and otherwise).

THE VILLAGE was "okay" for me -- I figured the twist when I read the concept lol -- but it was reasonably well acted and scored. Still, LADY IN THE WATER -- as Michael says -- is where it came to a crashing thud. It's not an exaggeration to say that was one of the biggest misfires in Hollywood history from a "director in their prime". Warner spent a lot of money wooing him and gave him a bigger budget to work with, and it's a self-indulgent, leaden disaster on every level (save the score).

THE HAPPENING is lousy but good for a few laughs, unintentional and otherwise, and at least it's "alive", which is more you can say for LADY IN THE WATER.