Glass (2019) - Shyamalan buries past effort in ominous superhero nonsense

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+ Worst Movie of the Year

 

Three contrasting colors and a cool dual image graphic design outline this anticipation-building poster for M. Night Shyamalan's Glass

In a special mental hospital patients are kept, who believe they are superheroes...

 

Glass is written and directed by Indian-born American master filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan (Praying with Anger (1992)), whose 13th feature it is. It is the final installment in his Unbreakable trilogy, which also contains Unbreakable (2000) and Split (2016).

It is a ghastly and yawn-inducing boring dud that takes James McAvoy's (Wanted (2008)) personality split character and his Beast 'superhero' persona introduced in Split for another bow, as this is served as somehow 'psychological' material, while Bruce Willis (What Just Happened (2008)) and Samuel L. Jackson (Jumper (2008)) ravage as their unnecessarily and agonizingly reanimated characters from the memorable Unbreakable. Sarah Paulson (Swimmers (2005)) is on duty to put her face in serious folds as a doctor.

Without a plot that is anywhere near exciting, Glass flows onwards like a swamp of ominous nonsense. It may be labeled a superhero dystopia for adults, - but who will honestly enjoy this horrid junk?

 

Related posts:

 

M. Night Shyamalan: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

The Visit (2015) - Shyamalan's creepy mini-comeback 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 20 mil. $

Box office: 246.9 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned 12.34 times its cost)

[Glass premiered 7 January (Paris, France) and runs 129 minutes. The success of Split prompted Glass, which Shyamalan funded himself, - and likely via this strategy kept star salaries and thus the final cost at an impressive minimum. Shooting took place from October - December 2017 in Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia. Universal Pictures reportedly spent 80 mil. $ at marketing the film. It opened #1 to a 40.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 3 weekends in #1 and one more weekend in the top 5 (#5), grossing 111 mil. $ (45 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 14.2 mil. $ (5.8 %) and Mexico with 10.8 mil. $ (4.4 %). Shyamalan returned with Servant (2019-21) and theatrically with Old (2021). McAvoy returned in X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019); Willis with a voice performance in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019), The Orville (2019, TV-series) and theatrically in Motherless Brooklyn (2019); and Jackson in Captain Marvel (2019). Glass is rotten at 36 % with a 5.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Glass?

The Last Station (2009) or, The Genius, the Countess and the Secretary

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+ Most Undeserved Flop Movie of the Year + Best Russian Movie of the Year + Best Drama of the Year

Two intimate bedside situations make up the warm-colored poster for Michael Hoffman's The Last Station

We follow a young secretary to Russian literary genius Leo Tolstoy, who ventures to his master's country estate to act as his faithful helper. But he finds a contradictory man with a temperamental countess wife and a foaming, fanatical publisher.

The Last Station is written and directed by great Hawaiian filmmaker Michael Hoffman (Privileged (1982)), adapting the same-titled novel by Jay Parini (Town Life (1988), poems). The period bio-drama is a joy from start to finish, a film with classical virtues in its story, which centers on the great man Tolstoy and in the universal and ever relevant theme of love.
The Last Station is impressively staged and shot with many closeups (cinematographer Sebastian Edschmid (Sweet Mud/Adama Meshuga'at (2006))), which gives it an intimate feeling. We never wallow in period details or get distracted by any unrelated elements. And The Last Station features outstanding performances from Christopher Plummer (Syriana (2005)), - who bizarrely won his long career's only Oscar the subsequent year for the both lesser film (Beginners) and performance in it, - and Helen Mirren (Losing Chase (1996), TV movie); Paul Giamatti (Sideways (2004)) and James McAvoy (The Conspirator (2010)) are also very good. The Last Station is a touching and thoroughly lovely film. 

Related posts:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 18 mil. $
Box office: 13.5 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.75 times the cost)
[The Last Station premiered 4 September (Telluride Film Festival, Colorado) and runs 112 minutes. Hoffman had chanced to buy Parini's book to read on a train ride and fell for it. Shooting took place in Germany and Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, ending in April 2008. The film opened #40 to a 73k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #15 and in 354 theaters and grossed 6.6 mil. $ (48.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Germany with 1.7 mil. $ (12.6 %) and Australia with 1 mil. $ (7.4 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: Lead Actress (Mirren), lost to Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side, and Best Supporting Actor (Plummer, strangely subjugated to the supporting category), lost to Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds. It was also nominated for 2 Golden Globes, 5 Independent Spirit awards and some other honors. Hoffman returned with Gambit (2012). Plummer returned in Beginners (2010), Mirren in Love Ranch (2010) and McAvoy in The Conspirator (2010). The Last Station is fresh at 71 % with a 6.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Last Station?

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Some qualities aren't enough to lift burdened franchise spectacle

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The character-jammed poster for Bryan Singer's X-Men: Apocalypse

X-Men: Apocalypse is the 6th movie in the X-Men franchise (not counting the two Wolverine movies and Deadpool), directed by the series' main director, great New-Yorker filmmaker Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects (1995)). It is written by Simon Kinberg (Fantastic Four (2015)) with story by Kinberg, Singer, Michael Dougherty (Krampus (2015)) and Dan Harris (X-Men 2 (2003)).

An ancient mutant from Egypt known as Apocalypse has been gathering mutant superpowers for centuries and is awakened by the hand of his few modern followers in the 1980s. His ambition to dominate humans and mutants alike requires a firm response from the not yet formed X-Men.

Apocalypse starts out with a fascinating sequence in ancient Egypt that introduces the Apocalypse character, who is a formidable, great villain portrayed by Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)), who is unrecognizable and presumably spent countless painstaking hours being made up to play the part. Apocalypse seems especially inspired by Boris Karloff's look as The Mummy (1932).
The film later references The Exorcist (1973), slyly disses Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and has a good time with 1980s fashion and music. The X-Men films are interesting, because they create characters with fantastical powers, treat them with seriousness and put them squarely in seemingly real circumstances, historical, social or otherwise. SPOILER In Apocalypse, we return, for instance, to Auschwitz, which Magneto destroys in a matter of seconds.
The film's funniest, coolest scene sees Quicksilver (Evan Peters (Adult World (2013))) save all the mutants from professor Xavier's exploding academy to the sweet sounds of Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). This is a refreshing change of tone in an otherwise brooding and very long movie.
X-Men: Apocalypse is also a busy movie. - Too busy for its own good. It storms past points that it would have made sense to give us logical answers to, (such as; where did all those nukes sent flying into space go?) The third act is wildly overlong. One part that was especially unnecessary: SPOILER Putting some of our friends in General Stryker's prison for a good long time and bringing in Wolverine for a completely redundant appearance. Fans will already know the Stryker/Wolverine storyline from more than one previous X-Men movie, so its reappearance here in an already bloated final part of Apocalypse is a shame. The X-Men universe is a character-driven one, which is mainly a strength, as we are treated to new and reappearing characters in each movie. In Apocalypse, the apocalyptic is balanced with some high school movie-like elements featuring Tye Sheridan (Mud (2012)) and Sophie Turner (Barely Lethal (2015)) as Cyclops and Jean, but despite being both young and good-looking, their budding romance is tame. (It never was interesting when it was James Marsden and Famke Janssen portraying the characters either.)
The franchise's key characters, played by James McAvoy (Filth (2013)) and Michael Fassbender (Fish Tank (2009)), have a Xavier-Magneto relationship dynamic that by now feels repetitive, which also bears down on this heavy spectacle. This X-Men doesn't get the magic back of the first couple of films either.

Related posts:
 
The X-Men franchise: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - A BAM in every direction for the tired franchise 
X-Men: First Class (2011) - Vaughn's handsome if cluttered reboot
 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 234 mil. $
Box office: Not out yet
= Too early to say
[X-Men: Apocalypse premiered May 9 (London) and runs 144 minutes. It was filmed from April - August 2015 in Canada, with additional shooting in September and January 2016. X-Men: Apocalypse is rotten at 51 % with a 5.6 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.] 

What do you think of X-Men: Apocalypse?

X-Men: First Class (2011) - Vaughn's handsome if cluttered reboot

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A new band of actors stand ready to carry on the X-Men franchise on this poster for Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class

QUICK REVIEW:

In the 1960s, the existence of mutants becomes known by the US government, and the mutants get involved in the nuclear race.

Stars James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland (2006)), Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games (2012)), Michael Ironside (Total Recall (1990)) and January Jones (Mad Men (2007-15)) are, like many of the film's fine special effects, pleasures to behold. Unfortunately, the story handling here in First Class, either a reboot of the X-Men franchise and/or simply the beginning of a second feature trilogy, depending on who you ask, leaves much to be wished for, and, clocking in at 132 minutes, it doesn't go easy on its audience lengthwise.
It is written by Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz (Thor (2011), both), Jane Goldman (Stardust (2007)) and its English director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass (2010)), with Bryan Singer (X-Men 2 (2003)) and Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air (2009)) contributing story. - No wonder the story's a little jumbled with all those chefs around the pots!

Related review:

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - A BAM in every direction for the tired franchise 

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 140-160 mil. $
Box office: 353.6 mil. $
= Minor flop
[First Class opened #1 to a 55.1 mil. $ domestic opening weekend, on par with the first X-men (2000), (before accounting for inflation), and abroad, the film peaked at #2, seen collectively. It grossed 146.4 mil. $ (41 % of the total gross) in North America. The film's costs of 160 mil. $ were reportedly lowered to around 140 mil. $ after tax rebates from its production countries.]

What do you think of X-Men: First Class?

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) or, Just Plain Narnia

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 + Best Family Movie of the Year + Best Fantasy of the Year + Best Adaptation of the Year + Best Blockbuster of the Year + Best Poster of the Year 

The adventurous, beautifully crafted poster for Andrew Adamson's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

QUICK REVIEW:

During the Blitz in WWII in a London suburb, a flock of 4 siblings are sent to stay in an old house, which contains a wardrobe that is a portal to the strange country of Narnia. Here, an evil witch and a lion named Aslan rule.

The adaptation of C.S. Lewis' (The Pilgrim's Regress (1933)) 1950 book seems perfectly suited to Disney, who have co-produced the film with Walden Media, (whose biggest hit this still remains.) It is, in my opinion, Disney's most distinguished job to adapt novels and themselves come up with stories such as this one, to spin gripping and highly entertaining stories with good, Christian morals, (Lewis' authorship is highly influenced by his side-career as a lay-theologian and convinced Christian.) The cast and crew carry out the ambitious project in the most exquisite fashion.
Narnia, which also has two lesser successful sequels, (Prince Caspian (2008) and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)) offers sweeping CGI and practical effects, - it won the Best Make-Up Oscar for its remarkable achievements in this area, - some sweet kids in the leads, and an evil Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)) as the witch:

Tilda Swinton is great as the evil witch in Andrew Adamson's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a highly recommendable adventure fantasy movie that appeals almost equally to kids and adults alike: It is a magnificent film full of wonder, awe, originality, ideas and sound values, blighted only by the smallest of weaknesses. - Without question one of the best films of the year.
It is directed by New Zealand-born Andrew Adamson (Shrek (2001)), who, amazingly, took on Narnia as his first live-action feature.

Related post:

Top 10: The best adaptations reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date  

Top 10: Best fantasy movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]  

Aslan the lion, - voiced by Liam Neeson, - and Skandar Keynes as Edmund Pevensie in Andrew Adamson's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Cost: 180 mil. $
Box office: 745 mil. $
= Huge hit
[3rd biggest global smash of 2005; Walden Media's biggest hit to date; Disney's 5th largest opening to date (the biggest at the time); Narnia also impressed with 12.4 mil. DVD copies sold by 2008, accruing an additional 353.5 mil. $. This wholesome, mainstream-adventure that especially appeals in Christian markets the world over won both the hearts and minds of critics and audiences alike, in a way which none of its two sequels were able to.]

What do you think of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?
And of the two sequels, if you have seen them?

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - A BAM in every direction for the tired franchise

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The poster for  Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men 4 (not counting the origins movie X-Men: First Class (2011) or the Wolverine films (2009 and 2013)), is a huge event movie that has strong hold over large audiences the world over, as is evident from its impressive B.O. numbers.
In case you're wondering, my three stars is a very generous assessment of the film in my opinion.
It seems almost impossible to give an outline of Future Past's plot without either being too general or go into too much detail, but trying might be fun, so here goes:
The future is terrible due to anti-mutant 'sentinels' that emulate mutant powers to defeat them (successfully), a technology based on Mystique's mutant powers of shape-shifting after her capture by her nemesis, Dr. Bolivar Trask, a powerful weapons scientist, in the mid-1970s. To prevent sentinel-extinction, the X-Men collaborate to send Wolverine back in time to make Mystique a good girl, who doesn't try to kill Trask - or President Nixon! - and thereby provide the need for the sentinels. But this is a difficult task, getting the younger, apathetic Xavier to wake up and smell the morning coffee, - and get him and Magneto to meet and agree on anything. Their oppositional personalities clash again in Future Past, one a hopeful, the other a skeptic.
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook (2012)) gets a chance to play empowered angry-woman, who may or may not turn good, in the last second, of course, ( - which do you think it is...?)
The most interesting new character is Peter/Quicksilver (Evan Peters (Adult World (2013)), a young ADD-type guy, who can think and act really, really fast. Peters is energetic and well into the character and brings some fun into an otherwise very self-serious sci-fi action adventure. Other young performers, like Booboo Stewart as 'Warpath' (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)) is pretty much wasted due to his ridiculous make-up and costume, which is a shame.
Future Past is not generally a movie with any great actors' work in it; the universe isn't geared for that, and the ones singled out here are minor nuggets; the big guys, James McAvoy (The Last Station (2009)) and Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave (2013)), so good actors by themselves elsewhere, can't bring much to X-Men.

Fassbender at one point gets in contact with the power-figures in the human world by removing a stadium (!) and putting it on top of the White House, then ripping out the vault that they all hide in, and tearing it open of the lawn. His lacking subtlety seems symptomatic for a movie that stomps around different times and locations without much drive behind it, - what is it all for, one wonders, (if one has fallen out of the universe, as I clearly have.)
X-Men (2000) was really good; X-2 (2003) was even better; X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) by Brett Ratner (Red Dragon (2002)) was humongous and not very good. By X-Men: Days of Future Past, I have lost my enthusiasm for the series, which seems to have now developed into a possibly never-ending franchise. All things have a time, and for me, X-Men had a time, and that time lies clearly in the past.

The details:

Regarding the curious plot of Future Past, a nonsensical title if there ever was one, production people of the movie have said that with a time traveling movie, 'you can do anything'. Meaning that the time travel philosophy of parallel universes etc. makes everything feasible narrative-wise. Which is really only true, as long as you can get your audience to come along with you. With Future Past, I wondered why, - in all the other X-Men movies, - we've never heard of the sentinels, which were created and developed in a 50-year period following the mid-1970's? (Thus probably should have been an issue in all the other movies as well... - Is it all a parallel universe? Does anything have any consequence at all? - Not good questions for any movie.)
All logic and cohesive thought comes to an end sometime in a superhero franchise like X-Men, which likes to somersault around with multiple characters, times, places... This one also continually relies on the audience being familiar with the previous films, which is another weakness in my mind.
In the end, the X-Men are popcorn and multi-plex and merchandise fodder above all else. The Beast character most incarnates this, as he time and again grows from nice man into blue, ravenous wolf-like monster; pure eye-popping spectacle and very little else.
Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects (1995)), the director behind the two first and this X-Men film is the man who has shaped the franchise as it is more than anyone. As I zone out of the X-Men universe, I get more interested in Singer's personal problems, as he was accused of raping a boy many years ago while promoting Future Past, which he instantly stopped doing, (with good reason.) That case, and possibly more than the one, go on, as Singer, - one of the most successful directors in the world today, - is poised to direct the next X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) (Zzzzzzzz), but will he be able to? Reality sometimes beats fiction, and this is certainly a case of that, for me, anyway.

Evan Peters as Peter/Quicksilver eating a burger for an X-Men: Days of Future Past photo shoot, a movie mainly about selling and eating, (for the people involved, if you catch my drift)

Watch the trailer here

Budget: 200 mil. $
Box office: 739.6 mil. $ and running
= Big hit

What do you think of the X-Men movies and the newest chapter?
Any thoughts on Bryan Singer's private debacle?