Better than you might expect...

Rating: 7/10 (20 April 2005)

If you approach this film as something in the sci-fi or supernatural genres, you may be disappointed. It isn't really either of those. The DVD release includes a short documentary on comic-book superheroes which helps a lot. This invites the viewer to accept that we are dealing with archetypes and collective, fundamental motivation. It is in fact perfectly plausible to see David as an ordinary man, and 'Mr. Glass' as a more-or-less common-or-garden obsessive nutter. What matters is how much one can transcend self-imposed limitations: a path that David is induced into through a remarkable (but entirely possible) series of life-experiences. So if you need a genre, it's probably more to do with Psychology than anything else. Reconsidered in that interpretative framework, it's a distinctly good movie.