Glass Review

Glass is the nineteen (19) years superhero thriller sequel to Unbreakable (released 2000), the promise that was made at the end of Split (released 2016). Glass is the closing chapter to the trilogy.

I'm of the opinion that Glass is more of “Split part 2” than “Unbreakable part 2”. Glass brings together characters from the two previous blockbuster. From Unbreakable, Bruce Willis returns as David Dunn, Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price aka Mr. Glass. Joining from Split are James McAvoy, replaying his role as Kevin Wendell Crumb the villain with multiple identities, and Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey.

Review

After the events of Split, David Dunn, working with his son Joseph (who is now an adult), has been using his superhuman abilities to protect people from criminals under a new alias known as "The Overseer."

The father and son are currently on a pursuit of Kevin Wendell Crumb, who suffers from dissociative identity disorder, with alias "The Horde." Joseph narrows down Kevin's location, while David discovers where Kevin is currently operating and intentionally seeking him out by touching his nine year old identity, "Hedwig."

David 'The Overseer' then goes to free Kevin's hostages and also confronting him. This leads to David being attacked by "The Beast" Kevin's most powerful persona. The resulting fight spills out into the streets and leads to the eventual capture of both David and Kevin by the authorities. Both were sent to a mental institution where Elijah Price (aka Mr. Glass), David's sworn enemy, is also being held.

Dr. Ellie Staple, the chief doctor of the mental institution, specialises in treating patients who claim to have special powers. Staple reveals that she has been given three days to persuade David, Kevin, and Elijah that they are "normal" people. Staple is well aware that David's weakness is water and she has a machine that forces The Horde to switch identities, effectively disarming The Beast.

Joseph, Mrs. Price, and Casey Cooke (who survived an attack from the Beast) all visit at separate times to attempt to aid their associates, but fail.

Staple puts the three superhumans in one room for an evaluation and poisons David and The Horde with doubt of their abilities, accusing David of having the same ability as trained magicians and Dennis (a persona of The Horde) of copying rock climbers and being shot by bad cartridges.

The evaluation attracts Mr. Glass to The Beast, leading him to make his move. Mr. Glass breaks into The Horde's cell to prepare them for The Beast's awakening, but is captured and has surgery performed on him. The surgery fails and Elijah (Mr. Glass) awakens The Beast, convincing him to battle David on the city's highest tower to revive The Horde's faith and expose him to the world, then turns his attention to David and forces him to use the extent of his power to escape, lest Elijah destroy the tower in place of the showdown. The Horde and David rematch outside of the hospital and are evenly matched until Staple intervenes.

Staple orders four armed men on each of superhumans but David and The Beast fend them off. Elijah tells The Beast that water is David's weakness, but Joseph retaliates by revealing to The Beast that Elijah orchestrated the train crash that killed his father, the same train wreck that Elijah caused to find David.

After Kevin's father died, his abusive mother began torturing him, thus leading to the creation of Kevin's multiple personalities. The Beast thanks Elijah for creating him but tells Mr. Glass that his purpose was to protect Kevin thus he cannot trust Mr. Glass, something Glass didn't forsee, breaking his back then throwing David into a water tank. David survives but is weakened by the water. The Beast retreats and promises to finish him off at the tower. As The Beast leaves, Casey confronts him and coerces Kevin to take control of his body thus returning to his normal human state and taking control away from The Beast.

Staple's men then gun Kevin down while he is weak, and then overpower the now weakened David and begin to drown him in a flooded pothole, Staple lets David touch her as he is drowned, granting him a vision of her being part of a secret society trying to keep the existence of superhumans a secret. She tells him that she would've left him alone if she had convinced him that he was normal, but that The Beast ruined that.

As Elijah finally dies of his wounds, Staple strangely says to him that comic books were wrong about societies of supervillains obstructing superheroes, and that a human Illuminati-like group were the true masterminds of the obstruction of both heroes and villains despite many well known comic villains, and arguably Elijah himself, being non powered humans. Staple deletes the security footage and reports her mission as a success.

Unknown to Staple, the cameras around the hospital had previously been hacked by Elijah and were streaming to his mother along with Joseph and Casey, who are able to release it and prove the existence of individuals with superhuman abilities to the public. Staple was shocked and infuriated that the public is now aware of superheroes and villains, which she fought to hide. The ripple effect is that her plans and those of the secret society are destroyed.

While overlooking Philadelphia, Mrs. Price tells Joseph and Casey that it is "the beginning of a universe" as people and possibly other "superhumans" now know of their coexistence.