LogFAQs > #968431924

plasmabeam posted...

Mirrors (2008)

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(2/5/5 = 12)

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Horror is no stranger to the concept of mirrors. Bloody Mary, Candyman, Evil Dead II, Oculus, Black Mirror, American Werewolf, the countless mirror scares across the board I mean pick a horror property and it probably has some type of scare to do with a mirror. In a way, all horror functions as a mirror to society, and mirrors function as an easy way to get some thematic points across easily to your audience.

Mirrors, a VERY loose remake of the South Korean film Into the Mirror, had so much promise. Of course, American horror remakes proved to be all the rage in the 2000s, spurned on by notable successes such as The Grudge or The Ring. Though like many of its ilk, Mirrors fails to truly capture the macabre, reflective qualities of the original.

Its a film about a suspended detective that gets a new job as the night watchman in a burnt out luxury department store, who then discovers weird happenings with the mirrors that dot all over the building. That's cool. That's interesting, and at first, it's easy to get sucked into the film's alluring atmosphere. I really like the look of the store and some creative shots let us bask in the structure's strange architecture and off-putting mannequins.

Kiefer Sutherland plays the lead, and he mostly does a good job, but I feel like he overacts his "paranoia" scenes in a way that is too exaggerated. The rest of the cast isn't even close to being engaging, especially Paula Patton as Kiefer's wife, who feels especially checked out and rather uninterested in anything that's happening. Unfortunately, this leaves nothing to really be entertained by between the film's sparse but unnerving deaths (the death of Kiefer's sister is the best part of the movie easily), as the plot chugs along at a glacial pace, and the technical details get repetitive and too dull for its own good. At a certain point, we get the intent - mirrors bad. It's boring to just keep demonstrating that if you're not going to have any substance to it. The police procedural elements here are especially clich and Kiefer's stereotypical "disgraced cop" routine with the estranged family just adds to the general sameness of the film.

Mirrors picks up a bit again in a decently exciting climax with an eye-popping demonic possession set-piece, but we're never really treated to any answers to how the supernatural works and not in the "leave you wanting more" way, just the "please give me something to latch on to here" way. The film also never truly commits to the thematic promise of having mirrors as a central conceit to the film. What should have been a smart exploration of our main character's inner insecurities is diluted by sticking too close to an established formula on how this type of film is supposed to turn out.

In short, it's a mundane piece of horror in a director's filmography with highs (High Tension, Crawl) & lows (Mirrors, Piranha 3D).