Night Shyamalan has had a rather crazy career as a filmmaker as he has reached the heights of cinematic glory with “The Sixth Sense” and “Signs” and also traveled to its unforgiving depths with “The Last Airbender” and “After Earth.” In between those films was “Unbreakable,” his superhero thriller from the year 2000 in which Bruce Willis starred as a security guard who is the sole survivor of a horrific train crash, and Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price, a comic book art dealer who suffers from a rare disease which makes his bones extremely fragile and prone to fracture. I initially dismissed “Unbreakable” as the kind of lame effort from a filmmaker who pulled off one of the greatest twist endings in cinematic history. But in retrospect, it is truly one of his best films and perhaps even one of the best superhero movies ever.
Little did we know that with “Unbreakable,” Shyamalan had created his own cinematic universe. It continued with “Split” in which James McAvoy plays Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder who has 23 personalities inside of him. And now, we have the first trailer for “Glass,” the third movie in Shyamalan’s superhero series which unites Willis, Jackson and McAvoy together in a way which looks very exciting and highly promising.
The first image from this “Glass” trailer is of Dr. Ellie Staple who is played by Sarah Paulson. Ever since her appearance in the HBO movie “Game Change,” she has become one of my favorite actresses, and it is enthralling to watch her talk with these three men. Her face is a study in both fascination and terror as she is eager to talk with these men even though she is clearly scared of all they are capable of doing.
Then we get a look at these three men in the same frame, and it likes an “Avengers” movie you didn’t know was coming. For McAvoy, this represents a return to playing a character much like the one Sally Field played in “Sybil.” For Willis, it presents another opportunity to escape the direct to video realm as the “Death Wish” remake didn’t quite do it for him. And for Jackson, he gets to reprise one of his best and most unusual roles as this “bad ass motherfucker” has an infinitely high IQ but an ever so fragile body which fails him far too often.
Seriously, this is the first M. Night Shyamalan film I have looked forward to seeing in over a decade, and I say this even though “Glass” is coming out in January 2019. January is typically the month where Hollywood dumps its cinematic garbage on us as they have no idea where else to put it. Still, this cannot be any worse than “The Last Airbender.”
Check out the trailer below.
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