Well… this movie has absolutely broken me.

For context Unbreakable is one of my favourite movies of all time. Shyamalan was clearly ahead of the curve by deconstructing the standard comic book narrative only five months after the release of the first X-Men movie. The slow pace and highly intentional camera work make for a very entreating character study.

Split really caught me of guard back in 2017. James McAvoy’s performance being a highlight of the year and the reveal of David Dunn at the end lead to some great discussions about how the two stories would connect.

So now just two years after that revel but a whole nineteen years after Unbreakable Shyamalan brings us the concluding chapter to his comic book inspired trilogy.

Having seen the critical response before going in I wasn’t expecting much but for the first two thirds I really could not tell what the problem was. All of the performances were great. Bruce Willis coming of the back of years worth of disappointing performances seemed to actually care about his character. Samuel L. Jackson shows his ability to showcase a characters entire thought process with just the rise of an eyebrow and James McAvoy is so good at switching between personalities that moments in this film exist for the sole purpose of letting his show off.

The camera work kept me on edge the whole time, Shyamalan utilises every trick he has ever pulled of from hand-help tracking shots, point of view shots, panning shots reminiscent of his every work of Unbreakable and Signs and absolutely wonderful one takes that allow for McAvoy fully showcase the potential of his character(s). The more minor roles are also handled really well with Taylor-Joy returning as Casey Cooke adding to her wonderful performance from Split and Spencer Treat Clark making me question why he hasn’t had the chance to show just how great an actor he can be since his appearance in Unbreakable. Sarah Paulson is also far more important to this film than I had first presumed and her character has some great moments and aided by her subtle and purposeful performance.

But eventually you have to get the the finale. Without spoiling anything I am not a fan of the way this film concludes. To me it appears as if Shyamalan wanted a bigger reveal to justify the existence of the film and it just does not work.

The typically Shyamalan ending only serves to highlight some other issues I had with the film, particularly how underused the character of David Dunn was and how Shyamalan clearly cares more about the plot and characters in Split than Unbreakable begging the question of why this film had to exist and why It is called Glass when that character doesn’t do or say anything for about an hour of the movie.

Most of Glass is good, some of Glass is great but it never quite lives up to it’s full potential. Its worth seeing to round of the trilogy and maybe that ending will grow on me over time.

Great performances across the board and bold, unique direction but ultimately unsatisfying.