Split (2016) & Glass (2019)

I remember being hesitant to see this movie when it came out. Not because of the controversial reputation of its director (M. Night Shyamalan has had some hits and some misses, but I respect his talent and creativity), but because dissociative identity disorder is such a tricky subject, that hasn't had the best representation in the past. But here, James McAvoy sells it (keeping in mind that this is fiction, not a psychological documentary). And Anya Taylor-Joy is radiant as always.

I really liked how M. Night effectively turned what is, on its surface, a horror movie about three girls who are abducted by a maniac with a split personality into (ending spoilers!) an origin story for a new supervillain in the Unbreakable universe. I thought that was really clever. The only thing I could have done without is the lazy molestation back story. But other than that, I enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to watching Glass next.

---

I'm not the biggest fan of conventional superhero movies. It makes me sound like a hipster, but the MCU doesn't thrill me - and that was true even before they began to bore the public with a never-ending stream of cookie-cutter blockbusters. I prefer movies that deconstruct the concept of superheros. I liked Kick-Ass, and I liked The Watchmen. It wasn't, "what would a world with superheros be like", it was "what would superheros be like in the real world we inhabit?" I think that's why Batman is my favorite conventional superhero - he doesn't even have superpowers, just a lot of money. Well, that and the gothic atmosphere. But that's what I liked about Unbreakable. What if a real person, in the real world, found out he was indestructible?

Split was good because it functioned well as a horror movie, while also expanding the universe of Unbreakable by adding a crucial new element. Going into Glass, I was hoping to see what M. Night Shyamalan's take on a "conventional" superhero movie would look like. Instead, it spends entirely too much time trying to convince us (itself?) that these superheroes/villains are just delusional. I mean, it's an interesting concept - one of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the controversial one that successfully argued the posibillity that Buffy was a mental patient and everything was going on in her head. I suppose it could have made for an interesting movie if I wasn't hoping for something different.

Knowing that it's almost certainly part of M. Night's M.O. to bait and switch the audience prevents you from committing to the conceit (it's not one of his more successful deceptions). At this point in the trilogy, I've already signed on to these characters being actual superheros - let them loose! For a filmmaker who has made unpredictability his signature, perhaps the biggest twist of all would have been to do something conventional for a change. And that's what I wanted to see. But, even if I didn't love it, I'll still give M. Night credit for trying to be original. When you chew somebody up and spit them out just for going out on a limb and falling, it discourages them from daring to do it again. And that leads to an industry that runs on stale predictability.