The following is an edition of Panther Picture Spotlight, The Mirror’s movie column. All views, thoughts and opinions belong to the author and do not represent those of The Drury Mirror.

“Glass” is the latest from infamous director M. Night Shyamalan, the brains behind movies like “The Sixth Sense” and “Split.” As most know, Shyamalan’s work ranges from excellent to laughably horrible, and in that way “Glass” is a perfect embodiment of Shyamalan’s career.

“Unbreakable” and “Split” are two of Shyamalan’s best films, if not the best. Because of Shyamalan’s skill and successes, there was a high expectation for his latest film. This is Shyamalan’s “Avengers”: the success of the series is wholly reliant on the quality of “Glass.”

Yet, the film falls short. Not horribly short, but short enough.

“Glass” starts out promising, with a cold opening that showcases the best of Shyamalan’s direction. It is slow without feeling needlessly so, hard-hitting and filled with tension.

In fact, the picture is perfectly enjoyable despite some poor acting and even worse dialogue, up until Bruce Willis and James McAvoy are put in asylum. Unfortunately, this is where a vast majority of the film takes place.

Everything in the hospital is pointless. “Glass” forces you to sit for over an hour trying – and failing – to convince the viewer everything they have been told for the past two movies is a lie. It is meandering, pointless and, most importantly, not entertaining.

McAvoy is the only thing that keeps the viewer watching. His ability to completely change into different characters is impressive. What is not quite as impressive, though, is how he turns the dialogue into something resembling human speech. The other actors are not up to the challenge. Or, in the case of Willis, do not care enough to try.

The movie is visually beautiful, and props to cinematographer Mike Gioulakis for managing to make just one location interesting for an hour and a half. Unfortunately, it feels terribly small-scale, making the “epic third act showdown” feel like an over-hyped WWE match. “Glass” is clearly constricted by its small budget, and the whole film suffers for it.

Shyamalan is clearly uninterested in character. Instead, he chooses to focus on plot-heavy melodrama. That means there is nothing to latch onto in “Glass” besides some mishandled twists.  No character has an arc, or really much emotional depth, at all. This is particularly frustrating when there was a good story built in.

What should Shymalan have done? He should have had Bruce Willis search for McAvoy like he does in the beginning. Instead of having that sequence end within a half hour, he should have made that the whole movie. After 19 years of vigilante work with no challenge, Willis could be cocky about his abilities and see himself as invincible. There could be several confrontations, each time with Willis losing, and eventually having to accept the help of others to defeat McAvoy.

Since Shyamalan loves his twists so much, make McAvoy’s motivations and goals unclear, and reveal Samuel L. Jackson to have been behind the plot all along, using McAvoy to try to find more “superhumans.” Above all, do not call the film “Glass,” and boom. You’d have a solid movie that would not feel like such a waste of time, where there are fewer contrivances and motivations that do not have to flip flop all the time to make the plot logical.

If you liked “Unbreakable” and “Split” and just have to see where it all goes, wait for this to come out on video and rent it. There is no reason to waste your money seeing it in theaters.

Written by Jacob Maher.