Written by: Kevin Berge
January has always been a bad year for movies, but there's always hope some movie will come out of the muck. This year, there was one movie I expected to do just that, and one film did. It just wasn't the one I was expecting.
Glass was supposed to be January's savior, much as Split was 2 years ago. It sure tried to be. However, it was a complete unexpected movie The Boy Who Would Be King (following up some horrible trailers) as the only standout film released officially in January.
Quick Review: Glass sincerely disrespects the foundations of the work that built it up while crafting a film that is pretty to look at but not smart enough to be as lethargic as it is. While it clearly was created with a genuine passion, the resulting mess is simply damaging to the legacy of the previous two films.
Quick Review: The Boy Who Would Be King takes a fairly basic approach to adapting the Arthurian legend, utilizing young adult foundations. While it does not stretch too far, it manages to be engaging and effective in crafting a tale reminiscent of the best of the genre.
Glass was supposed to be January's savior, much as Split was 2 years ago. It sure tried to be. However, it was a complete unexpected movie The Boy Who Would Be King (following up some horrible trailers) as the only standout film released officially in January.
Quick Review: Glass sincerely disrespects the foundations of the work that built it up while crafting a film that is pretty to look at but not smart enough to be as lethargic as it is. While it clearly was created with a genuine passion, the resulting mess is simply damaging to the legacy of the previous two films.
Quick Review: The Boy Who Would Be King takes a fairly basic approach to adapting the Arthurian legend, utilizing young adult foundations. While it does not stretch too far, it manages to be engaging and effective in crafting a tale reminiscent of the best of the genre.
If you look real close, you can almost see Bruce Willis sort of trying behind the great work of Jackson and McAvoy. (Image Courtesy of: baldmove.com)
***The rest of this article will not feature direct spoilers for either film but will discuss their themes and focus points. If you wish to go into either of these movies without any spoilers, do not read ahead until you have seen them.***
When I first saw Split, I enjoyed it, but the care and attention behind its creation has made repeated viewing stronger. It is a well crafted thriller with incredible acting at its center. It is perhaps the safest movie M. Night Shyamalan has ever made, utilizing his best skills as a director without stretching his writing abilities.
Promising to cross the movie over with Unbreakable, another rare successful Shyamalan work, was always a dicey prospect, but there was also real potential. The divisive director clearly has a passion for comic books and had something to say about them at the apex of superhero cinema.
Unfortunately, Shyamalan just does not seem to know what he is doing when he crafts a screenplay. He's got a great eye for a scene, but his scripts are a mess that needs a much firmer hand to mold his ideas. Glass suffers from this more than even some of his worst work.
What Glass is really about is an appreciation for what makes individuals unique. It is Shyamalan attempting to explain that we love superhero stories because they make us feel like we can be anything despite so many other forms of media trying to suppress that drive to stand out.
With a few rewrites, there might have been something special here, but it comes off as the contrived musings of a man with no firm control of his own story due to the unpolished screenplay. Glass tries so hard to be meaningful that it actually ends up taking away meaning from the work it is working off of.
Split especially suffers because the movie's whole purpose in the story is to let McAvoy show off. His character is suddenly made far less interesting, more of a side act, and his central relationship with Casey is ruined by Shyamalan humanizing the abuse of the film. Casey is no longer a victim. Her purpose is to calm the beast inside this man.
It is insulting and disgusting in a way the director likely did not intend. What he clearly did intend was to decontextualize Unbreakable by excusing the actions of Mr. Glass. In fact, he is suddenly the hero at the end of this whole trilogy, and no one seems to remember how this all started.
When I first saw Split, I enjoyed it, but the care and attention behind its creation has made repeated viewing stronger. It is a well crafted thriller with incredible acting at its center. It is perhaps the safest movie M. Night Shyamalan has ever made, utilizing his best skills as a director without stretching his writing abilities.
Promising to cross the movie over with Unbreakable, another rare successful Shyamalan work, was always a dicey prospect, but there was also real potential. The divisive director clearly has a passion for comic books and had something to say about them at the apex of superhero cinema.
Unfortunately, Shyamalan just does not seem to know what he is doing when he crafts a screenplay. He's got a great eye for a scene, but his scripts are a mess that needs a much firmer hand to mold his ideas. Glass suffers from this more than even some of his worst work.
What Glass is really about is an appreciation for what makes individuals unique. It is Shyamalan attempting to explain that we love superhero stories because they make us feel like we can be anything despite so many other forms of media trying to suppress that drive to stand out.
With a few rewrites, there might have been something special here, but it comes off as the contrived musings of a man with no firm control of his own story due to the unpolished screenplay. Glass tries so hard to be meaningful that it actually ends up taking away meaning from the work it is working off of.
Split especially suffers because the movie's whole purpose in the story is to let McAvoy show off. His character is suddenly made far less interesting, more of a side act, and his central relationship with Casey is ruined by Shyamalan humanizing the abuse of the film. Casey is no longer a victim. Her purpose is to calm the beast inside this man.
It is insulting and disgusting in a way the director likely did not intend. What he clearly did intend was to decontextualize Unbreakable by excusing the actions of Mr. Glass. In fact, he is suddenly the hero at the end of this whole trilogy, and no one seems to remember how this all started.
No one is going to see this film, and I don't blame them. Even the poster shows how terribly this movie has been marketed. (Image Courtesy of: sciencefiction.com)
While Glass is loaded with great actors doing their best with what they have (McAvoy and Samuel L. Jackson in particular), The Kid Who Would Be King has a noticeable lack of top actors. The biggest actors in the film are Patrick Stewart and Rebecca Ferguson, who can barely be considered supporting actors given their screentime.
The whole film seemed silly to me coming in. The trailers came off as the latest misguided attempt to utilize the Arthurian legends to get people to pay attention, and the child actors were barely known names who did not come off as all that engaging.
However, the movie works precisely because it is working with unknowns and driven by a legacy of largely bad movies. Director and screenwriter Joe Cornish took eight years to follow up Attack the Block, and he does so with surprising universal gravitas.
This is not a movie that is going to stand up against his first film or last long in the memories of many, but its honest message of how it is the youth of today who must learn to work together and be the change we need in the world has a great effect.
This movie utilizes its basic premise well, laughing at times in the face of its own foundations to make a great point. While it is not as funny as it probably should be, it is emotional, taking a Harry Potter-esque approach by focusing on reigning in its absurdities to make a point for all ages.
It is far from perfect, and I hardly think I will remember it by the end of the year. However, I appreciated the effect it had. Angus Imrie in particular stands out, but all the child actors do well with the material and this feels like a movie everyone can enjoy.
I wants Glass to be the movie that stood out this month, and now I just want to forget it ever happened. Meanwhile, I hope that some of the beats that made The Boy Who Would Be King stand out stay with me because it feels like the imperfect but right movie for right now.
The whole film seemed silly to me coming in. The trailers came off as the latest misguided attempt to utilize the Arthurian legends to get people to pay attention, and the child actors were barely known names who did not come off as all that engaging.
However, the movie works precisely because it is working with unknowns and driven by a legacy of largely bad movies. Director and screenwriter Joe Cornish took eight years to follow up Attack the Block, and he does so with surprising universal gravitas.
This is not a movie that is going to stand up against his first film or last long in the memories of many, but its honest message of how it is the youth of today who must learn to work together and be the change we need in the world has a great effect.
This movie utilizes its basic premise well, laughing at times in the face of its own foundations to make a great point. While it is not as funny as it probably should be, it is emotional, taking a Harry Potter-esque approach by focusing on reigning in its absurdities to make a point for all ages.
It is far from perfect, and I hardly think I will remember it by the end of the year. However, I appreciated the effect it had. Angus Imrie in particular stands out, but all the child actors do well with the material and this feels like a movie everyone can enjoy.
I wants Glass to be the movie that stood out this month, and now I just want to forget it ever happened. Meanwhile, I hope that some of the beats that made The Boy Who Would Be King stand out stay with me because it feels like the imperfect but right movie for right now.
