Summary
A train crash survivor, played by Bruce Willis, realises that he has superhuman powers and then enters into a twisted power game with a disabled comic store owner, played by Samuel L. Jackson.
This is one of those films that a lot of people really like but that I have never been able to get into. When looking at Shyamalan’s wider body of work it is his forays into superhumans that really lose me, with the exception of Split, that and his dreadful After Earth.
My biggest issue with this film has always been that the characters don’t feel fully realised, in many senses they feel like someone has read a comic book and seen Batman, a purely random example, and has only understood one very basic aspect of his character and then has used that to create an inferior rip off character. To me the characters don’t feel in any way relatable and that is a big issue.
I also think the deeper question of do these people actually have powers, which gets turned up throughout the film and a lot going into Glass, is not actually as interesting as Shyamalan seems to think it is. Honestly after having the question asked for the hundredth time during the subtext of the film I begin to stop caring.
There are other avenues I could point to in my criticism of this film such as Bruce Willis being incredibly miscast but they are low hanging fruit and I won’t take them.
Overall, some of the worst aspects of Shyamalan as a filmmaker.
1/5
Pros.
It’s hard to not like a Samuel L. Jackson performance, he is a redeeming factor of the film.
Cons.
The characters are entirely unrelatable and feel alien in the worst way
It is far too long
Willis is incredibly miscast
It is not as deep as it thinks it is
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Another Millennial Reviewer 