An attempt by M. Night Shyamalan to create his own superhero franchise. Yes, that's meta, and sure, I am being cynical, but there can be no doubt what was being attempted here. A travesty really, given the ideas that it poaches. And yes again, I am aware that its own internal references to comic book worlds and hero and super villain franchises are intentional. That attempt at irony doesn't make mining pop culture tropes anything better than lazy and derivative, unless there is some kind of other level critique going on. And that certainly doesn't happen here. And the naked greed in taking this direction doesn't reflect well on M. Night Shyamalan either.

What we have is a sub par superhero story. I didn't rate Unbreakable well either, but at least that movie gave us an interesting take on what happens when a man comes to believe the unbelievable: when his ability to distinguish reality from fantasy breaks down. Glass rips away that narrative and replaces it with some kind of origin story for an X-Men universe conjured up by someone with no sense of drama or theatre at all. Ftr, I am no fan of the X-Men franchise, but it is easy enough to understand why it became a multi billion dollar franchise.