Last weekend, the final installment of the M. Night Shyamalan series that began with Unbreakable was released. Glass features all the main players of the other two movies, with them all finally meeting and having the big confrontation that audiences have been anticipating for years. Unlike many sequels, Glass is not simply a new adventure featuring the same characters, but the finale to a three-part story, a true trilogy. 

First, let me say there will be spoilers, so if you plan to see Glass you might want to stop here. Secondly, I did not find Glass to be a satisfying ending to the story. Yes, it wraps things up while leaving a few questions. But it’s very clunky with too many illogical connections and a couple of massive plot holes that could have been closed with better writing.

We all know that Shyamalan is known for his twists and he can be very good at them. But in Glass, one “twist” is more of a “where the hell did that come from”. I’m talking about Clover. If you’re going to have a secret society pop up near the end of a third installment of a trilogy, there should be obscure clues earlier on. In this case, there was nothing and that feels like sloppy writing – “hmmm, how am I going to tie things up, kill my main characters off and make this a bigger deal for the entire world? Secret society!”

Then there’s the supposedly brilliant doctor/Clover member who misses obvious clues from the patients, especially not giving Mr. Glass’ intellect the credit it’s due. Sure, she’s trying to make her patients believe they don’t have powers, but she knows they do have powers – and she seems to totally disregard them. And then she thinks that just asking a couple dozen employees to never talk about the craziness they saw during the final fight is going to work? She didn’t offer to pay them or threaten them or anything!

The other twist doesn’t work because of the technological, viral video filled age we live in. Glass ends with the three survivors having uploaded video from the final confrontation to the internet, wanting the world to see that superhumans exist. The problem is there are already loads of videos like this out there – people watch them and move on to the next. Sure, a few might believe they’re seeing superpowers, but not enough to make any impact.

The fact that Glass wraps up a trilogy that began almost 20 years ago is part of the reason that much of it doesn’t work. When Unbreakable was released, we didn’t have many superhero films or shows, not even vigilante ones. But now, it feels like things we’ve seen before, not unique at all. And it’s too late for the “uploaded to the web” twist to have any omg factor. So while it does conclude the tale of David, Kevin and Elijah, it doesn’t offer the uniqueness or thrill of the earlier installments – it lands with a thud.