‘Glass,’ Now on Netflix with ‘Split,’ Rounds Off One of the Best Superhero Trilogies

Trilogies are hard. They used to be relatively rare and fraught with regular disappointments on the order of The Godfather Part III. The proliferation of superhero movies over the past 25 years has increased their number – and probably their batting average, too, considering the relatively well-received likes of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy or James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. But the very success of these films can be destructive to the three-movie arc, too; who wants to stick with three movies when a fourth or a fifth might do just as well? (That’s why it seems unlikely that the MCU Spider-Man movies with Tom Holland will remain a trio.) Yes, trilogies are hard – and actually ending them is harder still.

Which brings us to M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass, which has recently popped into the Netflix Top 10, alongside its predecessor Split. Both movies are follow-ups – one secret, one more hyped – to his 2000 fantasy Unbreakable, forming a trilogy of horror-inflected superhero movies that is, in its oddball way, among the best superhero trilogies out there.

Emphasis on the “out there”; Shyamalan has spent many of the years since his Sixth Sense triumph showing off what an idiosyncratic weirdo he can be. In recent small-scale thrillers like A Knock at the Cabin and Old, it seems to be easier for both critics and audiences to accept this weirdness with the intimacy of small, family-based ensembles. The Unbreakable trilogy sprawls out on a bigger canvas, simply by working within the biggest cinematic subgenre of the 21st century. Nonetheless, two out of the three releases wound up feeling mistimed: Unbreakable came out in 2000, just a few months after X-Men revived the superhero genre, while Glass came out in 2019, amidst the wait between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, looking strange and out of touch next to this juggernaut.

The trilogy follows David Dunn (Bruce Willis), a melancholy man who in Unbreakable survives a massive train wreck and comes to realize that he has both superhuman strength and powers that allow him to intuit danger by touching people; a man coping with multiple personalities nicknamed the Horde (James McAvoy), who captures a group of teenage girls in Split; and, eventually, their intersection with each other as well as Unbreakable’s self-styled supervillain Elijah, also known as Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson).

It’s hard to top the aching sadness and mystery of Unbreakable, and Split stands alone well as a kicky, gimmicky exploitation movie. This left Glass in a position to disappoint in 2019, and many pointed out at the time how the pontificating about the nature of comic-book characters, so unexpected and fascinating in Shyamalan’s Sixth Sense follow-up years earlier, felt increasingly like the work of someone without any particular expertise in the form in Glass. Syamalan also doesn’t pay much mind to the superhero movie trend that was arguably peaking at the exact moment Glass originally hit theaters.

This suggested cluelessness about the finer points of the genre across media may be true; through his movie, Shyamalan tends to speak in generalities, namechecking fun facts about Action Comics #1 (and licensing a clip of the old live-action Batman TV series of all things) rather than any true obscurities (or even history of the comic book medium extending past 1960 or so). But his style is perfect for distilling comic-book-style characters down to their human essence, rather than attempting to blow them up to mythic, universe-widening proportions. One genuine nod to the expansion of superhero culture comes courtesy of the film’s semi-secret villain, Dr. Staple (Sarah Paulson), who wants to convince David, the Horde, and Glass that their powers are all in their head, notes that comic books are made to sell stuff, like teen-targeted TV shows. Though it emerged from a fan-teasing mid-credits scene in Split, Glass has its eye on the immediate moment, not the next round of synergy.

Take a look, for example, at how Shyamalan and his DP Mike Gioulakis shoot the first big fight between Dunn and the Horde. Neither McAvoy nor Willis are martial artists, let alone superpowered individuals, and the movie isn’t really budgeted for a bigger-than-life blowout. Moreover, Shyamalan doesn’t seem interested in packing that kind of punch (something that would frustrate even some fans by the end of the film). Instead, they film uses a kind of graphic simplicity: upside-down shots to convey the disorientation felt by the group of girls Dunn is rescuing and Dunn himself as the Horde scampers up and around the room; close-ups that fix the camera on Dunn’s face and the Horde’s enveloping arms; shadowy figures, rather than full-body flexes.  

Mr. Glass’s plan in the final movie involves a show of destruction that will tease superpowered individuals like Dunn and the Horde out of the shadows, exposing them to the world. (This will presumably bring meaning to Glass’s life as well, a dream deferred since he revealed himself to Dunn at the end of Unbreakable.) Seen from a more distant vantage, as superhero movies are beginning to lose their automatic luster, there’s something poignant about the way that Glass stages a clash between two emergent superheroes as a skirmish in a parking lot between a man in a superhuman amount of pain and a man who has managed his ability to carry a profound sadness. As in Unbreakable, where the inciting train crash is alluded to but not seen directly, the movie breaks down its conflict into suggestive images, full of tactile surfaces: the slam of a body against the side of a van, the plastic police shield just barely protecting an officer from a beast-man, the skin-to-skin contact of a former victim (Anya Taylor-Joy) reaching out to the Horde, searching for the man inside his shifting body.

The final moments of Glass overreach a little given the precision and simplicity of what’s come before, indulging Shyamalan’s weakness for self-actualization blather. But it’s also the rare superhero trilogy-ender that feels comfortably concluded, rather than either rushed or reluctant in its final moment. The Unbreakable trilogy will always feel lopsided, with one entry predating the other two by 17 years – a gap not so different from that between Godfather II and Godfather III. It will also always feel wonderfully, imperfectly human.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.

Stream Glass on Netflix