Reviews are out for M Night Shyamalan's new film Glass and most are not kind.
The long-awaited sequel to Unbreakable and Split stars Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis, James McAvoy, and Sarah Paulson.
Glass is also the first superhero movie of 2019, a year packed with more of them than any other - but high fan expectations appear to be dashed, according to many critics.
"Glass shatters under the weight of Shyamalan's ambition," writes Chris Evangelista for Slashfilm.
"It's a messy, muddled, often downright stupid movie. It broke my heart."
Evangelista's review is personal and impassioned, written by someone who appears to genuinely be a huge fan of Shyamalan.
"I desperately searched for something to grab hold of, like a drowning man trying to snag a life preserver. I've supported and enjoyed Shyamalan's work for so long that to sit and watch Glass play out in such a sloppy, sloggy fashion felt jarring. 'Have I been wrong this entire time?' I thought. 'Is Shyamalan a bad filmmaker after all?'"
Mike Ryan's review on Uproxx is similar, calling the film "one of the biggest personal disappointments I've ever experienced in a theatre".
In his indiewire review, David Ehrlich echoes that sentiment, saying it's the biggest disappointment of the filmmaker's career.
"Shyamalan's would-be victory lap is a boring slog that proves the director of Unbreakable and The Sixth Sense is gone for good".
Glass currently has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 36 percent and a Metacritic score of 45 - so not everyone is a hater.
"Each time Glass seems like a lost cause, Shyamalan pulls something truly affecting out of his hat," writes Karen Han for Polygon.
She says it comes close to greatness, but never quite reaches it.
In what appears to be the most positive review so far, The Atlantic's David Sims says he's "never seen anything quite like it".
"I admired Shyamalan's overreach, even as the auteur laid meta-textual twist atop twist in the movie's giddily loopy ending."
Glass opens in New Zealand on January 17.
Newshub.
