Critics Consensus

Critics Shatter Glass

Plus, Dragon Ball Super: Broly is a treat for fans, Netflix's new doc is Fyre, and season 2 of The Punisher is a disappointment.

by | January 17, 2019 | Comments

This weekend at the movies, we’ve got superheroes (Glass, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, and James McAvoy) and Super Saiyans (Dragon Ball Super: Broly). What are the critics saying?


Glass (2019) 37%

In 2000, before superhero movies were all the rage, director M. Night Shyamalan followed up his breakout hit The Sixth Sense with Unbreakable, starring Bruce Willis as a security guard who discovers he possesses supernatural powers. It earned a cult following over the ensuing decade and a half, when Shyamalan’s thriller Split revealed itself to be a sequel to the film. This week, we close out the trilogy with Glass, which reunites Willis’ David Dunn with Unbreakable co-star Samuel L. Jackson’s Elijah Price and Split star James McAvoy’s Kevin Wendell Crumb, as all three find themselves captured in the same mental hospital, facing off against a mysterious psychiatrist. Critics say that, despite a few entertaining flourishes, Glass fails to capitalize on the inventiveness of its predecessors and succumbs to Shyamalan’s most indulgent tendencies.


Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018) 83%

If you’re an average moviegoer, you may not have seen much marketing behind Dragon Ball Super: Broly, but rest assured that the series it represents has been popular with young audiences for decades, and those who are fans are likely aware of the film’s existence. This is, in fact, the 20th feature film to come from the iconic Dragon Ball anime series, and it focuses on series protagonists Goku and Vegeta’s encounters with another Saiyan like them, Broly, with tragic connections to their past. If you’re a Dragon Ball fan who’s been waiting for the film to open, critic reviews aren’t going to mean much to you, but for what it’s worth, most of them say it’s packed with eye-popping, beautifully animated action, and it reintroduces a character many fans feel was mishandled in the past. If you’re unfamiliar with the series, chances are you’ll be lost, but for those who have kept up, this should be a treat.


What’s New on TV

A Discovery of Witches: Season 1 (2018) 94%

A Discovery of Witches smartly grounds its flights of fancy with a lived-in authenticity and harnesses the chemistry between its two star-crossed leads to make for a promising foray into the occult.

[Premiering Thursday 1/17 on Sundance Now.]


Fyre (2019) 93%

Fyre smolders with agonizing tension when a party in paradise goes awry, but this slickly assembled documentary reserves its greatest horror for damning observations about the fallacy of opulence.

[Streaming Friday 1/18 on Netflix.]


Brexit (2019) 80%

With acerbic wit and a mesmerizingly eccentric performance from Benedict Cumberbatch, Brexit energetically renders recent history with unflinching poise.

[Airing Saturday 1/19 on HBO.]


Marvel's The Punisher: Season 2 (2019) 62%

The Punisher‘s second season leaves fans torn between the undeniably action-packed fun and the underwhelming portrayal of the charismatic Frank Castle.

[Streaming Friday 1/18 on Netflix.]


Also Opening This Week In Limited Release

  • What Is Democracy? (2018) , a documentary exploring the roots of modern-day democracy, is at 100%.
  • Who Will Write Our History (2018) , a documentary about the group of writers who secretly fought Nazi propaganda in Poland during World War II, is at 100%.
  • Don't Come Back From the Moon (2017) , about a family in a remote California town dealing with the absence of the father, is at 100%.
  • Egg (2018) , about two couples and a surrogate who clash over the course of one evening, is at 100%.
  • The Heiresses (2018) , about a woman who begins a taxi service for wealthy women when her longtime partner is imprisoned for fraud, is at 95%.
  • All These Small Moments (2018) , a drama about a teenager trying to make sense of his life while his parents’ marriage falls apart, is at 91%.
  • Adult Life Skills (2016) , about a woman who feels the pressure to “grow up” as she nears her 30th birthday, is at 74%.
  • The Standoff at Sparrow Creek (2018) , about an ex-cop who interrogates a local militia to find the perpetrator of a mass shooting, is at 71%.
  • I Hate Kids (2018) , about a man who takes a road trip to determine which of his former flames is the mother of his estranged son, is at 17%.
  • An Acceptable Loss (2018) , a thriller about a woman who risks her life to expose the truth about a political cover-up, is at 13%.