Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, James McAvoy, Sarah Poulson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Spencer Treat Clark, Luke Kirby, Marissa Brown, Charlayne Woodard, Adam David Thompson, M Night Shyamalan.

The art of the film maker comes with the unexpected sense of the sleight of hand, the appearance out of nowhere which justifies the movie as one that was always ready to be defined by what follows it, a story which the audience has no idea is part of a greater tale, one in which the director and writer might not have realised they themselves had no idea they were be guided by outside forces to make.

The Eastrail 177 Trilogy, three films that surely were not in the mind of M Night Shyamalan when Bruce Willis’ and Samuel L. Jackson’s characters, David Dunn and Elijah Price came to prominence in Unbreakable and yet it must be with consideration that what the writer/director has achieved in making Glass is to dispel the often crude insinuations that he cannot tie up a film to its natural ending.

Arguably, like 2016’s Split, it is in James McAvoy’s performance as Kevin Wendall Crumb/The Horde which captivates the eye. In an era when such characters are scrutinised, examined for fatal flaws or not paying enough deference to certain individuals who suffer from the affliction of Dissociative Identity Disorder, Mr. McAvoy portrays each personality with finesse, with distinctive style and gives the apparent chaos and confusion in the mind a viewpoint of empathy, even in amongst the fury of senseless killing, the audience cannot but help admire James McAvoy as he moulds each individual to a sense of self.

It is possible to think that the trilogy was only conceived in such a way during the making of Split, the call for a sequel going one better in the mind of M Night Shyamalan. Regardless of how it all came together in the film makers imagination, it has worked out with a fair degree of positive framing attached to it, a coup in tying together two of the writer/director’s more eloquent pictures and giving the culmination needed to tie up David Dunn’s and Elijah Price’s story.

A rather enjoyable tale, M Night Shyamalan bringing a semblance of balance to the art of film making, a picture that finds a way to reflect the idea of a higher conscious that resides in us, waiting to be let loose, and one that allows the clarity that comes with looking through Glass when it has been polished.

Ian D. Hall