Mirrors (2008) | The Bar

Movie Review: Mirrors (2008)

By Dr. Monkey • August 16, 2008

Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Ezra Buzzington, Erica Gluck, Cameron Boyce

Director: Alexandre Aja

Writer(s): Joe Gangemi, Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur, Jim Uhls, Kieran Mulroney, and Michele Mulroney

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Rating: R

Official Bar Score:

Let me just say that I became a big Alexandre Aja fan the moment I saw High Tension. The love continued with his relentless remake of the Hills Have Eyes so when I heard he was coming back for his fourth movie (I never saw his first film) I was pretty pumped, especially considering it was going to have film veteran Kiefer Sutherland in it. Before going on let me just say Aja’s weak point to me has always been his story telling, his writing lacks in a lot of areas but is usually made up for when his no holds barred refusal to turn the camera away from even the most brutally violent scenes. Aja has never been one for implying violence, instead showing the viewer head on in every gorey detail what is going on, and creating some awesome death sequences along the way.

Now Mirrors centers around Ben Carson who just got a night time job as a security guard for an old burned down high end New York department store. For those interested in his back story he has recently become an alcoholic after accidentally killing another police officer while on duty and has moved out of the house with his wife and kids and is currently living with his sister. Now while at this old department store he starts to notice strange things, in particular with the mirrors at the store and must do some detective work in an effort to protect his family from whatever evil it is the mirrors hold.

This is where this is going to start to become a rant, as there are so many problems and potholes in this film it’s unbelievable. First let’s begin with the story. Without spoiling the plot the main problems with the story is that it seems to change the rules as things move along confusing the viewer more and more as scenes unravel. We know that the mirrors cause people to kill themselves, sure we find that out in the opening scene of the film. However over time the story starts to adapt and uncovers more questions than answers.

In the story it is revealed that an evil is trapped in the mirrors, again without going too far into spoiler territory the evil was trapped in a specific set of mirrors at the site of the old run down store. Yet someone this evil is able to kill people that are in front of any mirror. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, but to hell with it you are meant to suspend a little belief so why not.

Then we get the infamous jaw ripping scene in which involves someone being killed that wasn’t even in front of a mirror. So now you are saying that not only does this evil possess the power to exit the mirrors it is trapped in and travel to any mirror, but you are also implying that all one must do is walk past a mirror and they are in danger. Now I’m a little more skeptical but whatever, again this is a horror movie let’s suspend some belief right?

Ah but now the story evolves again, it’s not just limited to mirrors. No, this evil can get you in anything that cast a reflection, this includes water. Hell, I guess technically a freshly cleaned plate or a moped floor could pose a threat as well for that matter. This is where things really started to fall apart.

Again trying my best to not spoil things too much, we are left with an evil being with the ability to manifest it’s power into anything with a reflection yet it’s purpose is to get out of the mirrors. However the way the story shapes up you are left wondering why. I mean why is it necessary to leave the mirrors if you can manifest into anything with a reflection? Besides when this evil was originally outside the mirrors it never did anything but cause violent temper tantrums within the person it resided it wasn’t until it was trapped in the mirrors that it even killed anyone. So again it makes no sense, not only that but the person that the evil is after should have been easily taken. Sure they were conveniently moved to a place where mirrors are banned (what an overly convenient plot device) but with it’s ability to manifest into anything with a reflection you can’t tell me the evil couldn’t have eventually located this person and gotten them via freshly mopped floor reflection. Yeah it sounds stupid, but I didn’t make the rules I just point them out when someone tries to ignore them.

Let’s forget the story, I could go on for days about how bad the story was but let me move on to Aja’s direction. Mostly known as I said for his violence you expect to see some crazy stuff and yes you do and no you don’t. Alexandre suffers in this film from the classic “blowing your load too quick” syndrome. There are three gory scenes with only two really reaching what you’d expect from Aja, and they all fall within the first 30-40 mins. Considering the film was almost 110 mins, that’s not good. You get the opening scene to set the tone, the jaw ripping scene which is easily the best scene of the film, and a brief autopsy. That’s it, the rest is your typical “J-Horror” PG-13 style violence.

Which brings up another issue, the movie seemed way too watered down. Again outside of three scenes the movie was a far cry from Alexandre Aja’s previous work opting to use the cheap “jump” scares that plague bad PG-13 horror films. It’s almost as if he wanted to make a more mainstream friendly horror film yet through in a few scenes to satisfy his more loyal fans. The result ended up being a product that just doesn’t seem to gel with either crowd.

In all fairness all the blame can’t go to the director and writer, some must go to the acting, and more specifically the lead role played by Kiefer Sutherland. This was by far one of the worst performances I recall seeing by Kiefer. For reasons that are never known 90% of Kiefer’s scenes result in him screaming at someone. His wife, sister, nuns, mirrors, and random old guys are all under attack by the rage that is Sutherland’s character. I mean it literally turned into a huge bit of unintentional comedy before all was said and done. Normally I get mad when people at theaters start laughing at scenes that aren’t meant to be funny (especially at horror movies) but this was very much warranted. Even my wife had to laugh at how bad some of the scenes were.

Perhaps it’s best that I just wrap it up here because I swear I could go on forever at this rate. Bottom line, avoid this movie as there is almost nothing redeeming about it and the only reason it scored 2 and 1/2 is because I’m an Aja fanboy and for the fact that the jaw-ripping scene will go down as one of the coolest death scenes ever. I guess Horror Event of the Summer isn’t false advertising when you are the only horror movie of the Summer.