Movie Review: Mirrors
By Matthew Huntley
boxofficeprophets.com
August 25, 2008

American horror films tend to operate on the notion that louder means scarier. Every shriek, scream, crescendo and ambient noise pounds on the soundtrack as if it's the movie's job to deafen the audience. I say "American" because all the foreign horror films I've seen utilize sound rather than overextend it. American horror movies have steadily lessened in their grace to envelop viewers and instead go right for the shocks and brutality. The filmmakers behind them fail to realize it's the nuance and subtlety of a scene that can make it horrifying, not the number of decibels.

If the makers behind Mirrors knew this, the movie might have amounted to something scary and effective. But director Alexandre Aja takes a more sensational and stylistic (and unfortunately conventional) approach, which presents the plot in an all too goofy a manner. As a result, we don't respond to the movie as much as we'd like to; not that we don't enjoy some of the ride.

Once again using Asian cinema as inspiration, Aja's movie is a remake of the South Korean film, Into the Mirror, unseen by me, but I'm willing to bet it's not as noisy or laughable as the American version. Kiefer Sutherland stars as Ben Carson, a depressed, alcohol-prone NYPD detective who's been suspended from duty after accidentally killing a fellow officer. It's a good thing Ben keeps a newspaper headline of this information in plain sight so we know what's going on (it also helps that he states it in a later scene just in case we didn't pick up on it).

Ben is currently estranged from his wife Amy (Paula Patton) and their two kids. He crashes on his little sister's (Amy Smart) couch and takes a job as a security guard at a burned-down department store, which, before that, was a psychiatric hospital for the schizophrenic. One of the striking things about the movie is the set of the old store. Production designer Joseph C. Nemec III does a terrific job of creating a dilapidated, murky and overall unwholesome environment with which to center the action and tension.

What's peculiar about the run-down building are its pristine mirrors, clean, shiny and unscathed. During his nightly round, Ben starts to notice strange things happening in and around the mirrors, like screams from a far off distance even though no one is there; or burn victims being tortured in the reflections; and the glass being impervious to shatter. After Ben shoots it, it reforms like new. Eventually, Ben sees horrifying images in the mirrors and starts to feel like he's being burned and deformed. Are the mirrors trying to tell him something? They finally spell out the name "Esseker" and Ben makes it his mission to get to the bottom of it before he or his family become victims (he learns other security guards and their families died because they couldn't find out what "Esseker" meant).

What "Esseker" means, I will not say, because despite its goofiness, the plot of Mirrors does hold our interest. It doesn't merely throw away all its mystery and detective work for bombastic storytelling. Kiefer Sutherland does a good job of convincing us he's an obsessed man with deep emotional problems and we do care about him. I also liked Paula Patton, who may have a lot to learn about acting but has the kind of nature to invoke sympathy.

But the movie is over-told and lacks a faith in the audience to follow the story using visuals and intelligence. It spells everything out and rushes from one scene to the next out of fear the audience might become impatient with pure mood and tone. Every plot development is reiterated with dialogue and the characters speak everything they think and read. For instance, when he's digging for answers in old newspaper clippings, Ben reads all the headlines out loud. Do the filmmakers really think people do this? Along with the obstreperous soundtrack (loud shrieks, pigeon flapping its wings, thunderous musical score), the movie feels bloated with more noise than it needs.

Compared to other recent American horror fare (The Grudge 2, Prom Night), Mirrors is well made but not exactly well told. It's tolerable and moderately intriguing, thanks to its manipulative plot and exceptional production design. I admit I was always curious where it was taking me and it was fun to look at. I also loved the ambiguous twist at the end, which is handled magnificently because the filmmakers finally trust us to get it on our own. It's at this point you realize if the movie had only done more showing and less telling (and eased up on the noise), it would have been a keeper.

Mirrors (2008) Movie Review
By Kelsey Zukowski
horroryearbook.com
August 20, 2008

Mirrors manages to resist the simple ghost story cliches and predictability. Even though it is not among the greatest, it still severely squashes the vast majority of mediocre films that have premises that are not all that different. It accomplishes this by having a solid story and doesn’t feel the need to reveal it in a big twist. Instead, it gradually is revealed to us at piece by piece at the same time our main character is learning and discovering the information for himself and learning what he has to do to stop what will otherwise be the inevitable.

Ben Carson (Sutherland) is an ex-cop who has made a few mistakes in his past that have taken away some of the most important things to him. He no longer has his job, his wife, Amy (Patton), and has to greatly struggle to even see his kids, Michael (Boyce) and Daisy (Gluck). Not to mention it is hard to get a hold of himself from the pain and urge to resist drinking during this. For awhile he even has a hard time trying to find a job and ends up staying with his sister, Angela (Smart). Ben eventually finds one as the security of an old burnt and destroyed shopping center. It is very dark and gloomy there and before long, Ben begins to hear things; people screaming for their life. Along with the pained voices, he starts to see horrifying images, particularly through the many mirrors that the building holds. When the man who previously held his position ends up dead with a sliced throat, a package from this very man is delivered to Ben. It is full of newspaper clippings of the fire in the mall and the man who confessed to the crime.

Ben gets the feeling that there is a connection between the death and something going wrong in the rundown mall. This man must have been trying to tell him something, most likely warning him of falling in to the same fate that he ended up with. Ben is searching for answers and in the mean time trying to take precautions. As he sees the people in his life getting deeper and deeper in to danger he attempts to take more drastic measures. Of course in doing so, Amy just thinks he is insane and attributes his belief of danger through the mirrors just being a side affect of the prescription drugs he is taking to make him resist alcohol. The more he tries, all she sees is instability and him as a danger to their kids, making it harder for him to protect them. Ben makes all efforts to find who is attacking through the mirrors and why. Figuring out the truth and reasoning and how to set it right may be his only line of defense, not just for him and his family but for anyone who comes in to contact with the mirrors.

The cast and Kiefer Sutherland in particular made the film a lot more believable and easier to respect. He was very realistic in his portrayal of Ben and gave him the right amount of struggle and understanding through his character as well as the information that he was gradually gaining on the horrors that are now haunting him. Amy Smart did well with her role and particularly in her scene with the attack of the mirror demons. She didn’t wasn’t the focus, but was a good supporting actor. Paula Patton did pretty well opposite of Kiefer Sutherland. She was believable in her role as a mother, an aggravated ex-wife, and even through her work dealing with the dead and the fight against the dead later on. She seemed intelligent and that common sense is what she defined her thinking on, pushing away any irrational thoughts. Cameron Boyce and Erica Gluck did a decent job in the film as the kids, serving their purpose in the movie.

There is not a ton of gore in the film. One of the best moments that does show more blood is with Amy Smart when she is in the bath and her mirror image rips her jaws in opposing direction to the point of nearly separating her head in to two pieces. It is mostly the motion of this happening and the snapping of the jaw while the blood is gushing around it. There are a few similar moments like this, but more importantly the mystery and whether or not the information our characters are searching for will really save them or not. We know that there has been some trouble in the past that they are dealing with. Mirrors manages to be an enjoyable ride mostly by giving us likeable characters that we know enough about, while still leaving a lot of empty and dark areas. Since there is a lot we don’t know we are more intrigued and interested to find out more. For a situation that seems so far off from reality, the back story actually seemed to have enough realism to it that made it seem like something more real than just a typical urban legend.

Even though Alexandra Aja’s last film’s haven’t quite measured up to High Tension, he still proves himself with each piece of work he involves himself in. Aja has a real eye for seeing a terrifying situation. He has a great eye for characters as well, which is something that can often be lost in horror movies. In P2 he brought out the terror of being stuck in a parking garage hunted by someone you walk past everyday. He was really able to bring out so much in his villain, which he surely did in High Tension as well. Mirrors has a much broader villain, which is brought out very well through the concept that the film is based on; that there could be a whole other parallel universe of evil that could have the power to control your every move through possession and get you to harm yourself in ways that you wouldn‘t wish on anyone. You would have no say or control in vicious acts. Mirrors are everywhere in our world and this thought of something evil in the mirror looking back is something worth exploring. I don’t want to go in to it too much, since the mystery is really the best part of the film, but there are some good themes that are dealt with within the evils and where they came from. Themes of searching, institutional wrongs, and running from entrapment of the darkness are dealt with and compliment the movie and our thirst for answers very well. Mirrors, although it won’t be remembered as one of the best, is still a suspenseful and enjoyable ghost story that deals with solid moral questioning that will keep you intrigued.

Sutherland's talent can't redeem perplexing plot
By Jason Anderson
globeandmail.com
August 18, 2008

An occasionally inventive but ultimately plodding horror film by French director Alexandre Aja, Mirrors is hardly the most prestigious movie vehicle for Kiefer Sutherland. In fact, his face is nowhere to be seen on its main poster, which could be an indication of his flagging star power or the studio's unwillingness to stir memories of his well-publicized recent stint in jail.

But the oft-troubled actor applies himself to his task here with admirable fervour. Perhaps he suspects he might be far worse off - if not for the boost provided by his role on 24, he'd likely be spending his career co-starring with the two Coreys in straight-to-video sequels to The Lost Boys.

Mirrors belongs to a higher class of genre fare, even if it's stymied by poor plotting and a tone that is surprisingly sedate considering the film was made by the team behind the superior Gallic slasher flick High Tension and a vicious remake of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes. This too is a remake, Aja and co-writer Gregory Levasseur having retooled a Korean horror movie called Into the Mirror.

Sutherland plays Ben Carson, a disgraced cop who takes a job as a night watchman in a department store that was ruined in a fire five years before but has yet to be restored.

Seeing as he only has charred mannequins for company, it's no wonder he's spooked by the place when he does his rounds. But the real threat is the building's mirrors, which show strange and violent images that confuse the looker about what's real and what's not.

They also have the power to kill, a fact that Ben's sister Angela (Amy Smart) learns the hard way during the movie's grisliest scene. As Ben's estranged wife Amy (Paula Patton) and two kids are imperilled by the forces apparently lurking on the other side of any reflective surface - shiny doorknobs included - Ben races to figure out the origins of the phenomenon.

Ben gets so frantic that he inevitably seems like Jack Bauer right before he tortures an uncooperative terrorist. But all of Ben's shouting and shooting don't do much good with an enemy he can't comprehend.

Mirrors is most effective when the viewer is equally perplexed by the nature of the threat. Unfortunately, Aja and Levasseur's efforts to provide a solution to this mystery are punishingly laborious. They also remove Ben from the movie's most ominous location, the ruined department store.

After a tedious stretch in the middle, the tension picks up again with a finale that intermittently exhibits Aja's usual flair for mayhem.

And thanks to Sutherland's ability to generate some empathy for his tormented family-man hero, Mirrors is less reminiscent of the recent run of feeble Hollywood remakes of Asian horror hits (e.g., The Eye, Pulse) than it is of Stir of Echoes, a 1999 thriller that starred Kevin Bacon as a father in a similar predicament. But on the whole, Mirrors is too lugubrious and misconceived to reflect the talent of those involved.

Review: 'Mirrors' - Los Angeles Times
By Mark Olsen, Special to The Times
August 18, 2008

After muddling through this horror diversion, Kiefer Sutherland is better off keeping his day job on '24.'

Hollywood, where vanity can seem not a vice but a virtue, would presumably love mirrors. Not so in "Mirrors," a ridiculous studio remake of a Korean horror film where at a burnt-out old department store, the new night-shift security guard (Kiefer Sutherland), a disgraced ex-cop, finds that the mirrors are home to evil, murderous spirits.

Directed by Frenchman Alexandre Aja, this isn't the sort of movie that's supposed to make sense or hang together in a way that vaguely resembles the actual world. It is here to be freaky and fun, an entertainment for those of us who enjoy watching, from the remove of movie-dom, a woman rip her own jaw off. In that it is a moderate success, if still more a modest diversion than a bold exploration of the horror genre. An old lady explodes and within the structure of the narrative, that's a good thing. Then she comes back as a possessed demon. That's bad.

Paula Patton plays Sutherland's estranged wife, but she's mostly there to wear a wet, white tank-top while corralling the obligatory children-in-peril. Amy Smart plays the sympathetic sister of Sutherland's character but is actually there to drop her robe for a bath that ends badly (and provides the film with its money-shot moment of icky gore).

"Mirrors" is really the Kiefer Show, and Sutherland's drastically limited range is somehow right for the role -- he pretty much has two modes as a performer, either quietly seething or barking loudly with his cigarette-raspy voice. Throughout the R-rated film, Sutherland gets to swear like a sailor, something he can't do on TV's "24," and he relishes the opportunity. He even cusses at a nun.

Known for such flashy trash as the nonsensical "High Tension" and the wearingly gruesome remake of "The Hills Have Eyes," Aja is the sort of director whom movie executives presumably love. Unencumbered by such niceties as logic, reality or the extended metaphors that can make horror films trenchant examinations of who we really are, Aja crafts films that are both dazzling constructions and utterly hollow endeavors. An empty enterprise that provides a few moments of goofy fun, "Mirrors" reflects back nothing.

Movies - Mirrors Review
Posted by Jeremy Thomas
411mania.com
August 17, 2008

An Alexandre Aja Asian horror remake that proves two wrongs can make a not-quite-wrong.

Many of the movie makers at the forefront of the horror genre within the last several years are not ones who are doing the genre any favors. Chief among these are two men: Eli Roth and Alexandre Aja. Whereas most directors who make missteps in the genre move on or improve, these two have a growingly painful tendency to prove again and again how much damage they can do to a field that already tops the list of genres hated by critics. While Roth is more well-known thanks to his abysmal Hostel films, Aja is no slouch in the field either. He first came to audience’s attention with 2003’s High Tension, a somewhat promising film that was utterly destroyed by horrendous dubbing and one of the stupidest twists known to cinema. He moved on from there to write and direct the flashy and stylish but insipid remake of Wes Craven’s cult classic The Hills Have Eyes, and then to write and produce the horrendously bad parking lot stalker film P2. Following that failure, he’s attempting to make his comeback with Mirrors, pulling a writer/director/producer triple-duty while Keifer Sutherland takes his turn in front of the camera.

The film, a remake of the 2003 South Korean horror film Into the Mirrors, stars Sutherland as Benjamin Carson. Ben is an NYPD detective who’s been down on his luck ever since he killed an undercover officer in the line of duty. He’s on leave from duty following the aftermath where his entire precinct blames him, he’s battling alcoholism, and his wife Amy (Patton), a coroner, has kicked him out of the house. He’s living with his sister Angela (Smart), and misses his two children desperately. In order to get his life back on track, he takes a security guard job at the remnants of the Mayflower department store, a place that was gutted by arson five years earlier and is now caught in insurance red tape. After being given an introduction by the day watchman (Shrapnel), he takes over and, on his very first night, starts to get immediately creeped out by the very spooky place, a feeling that shoots into the stratosphere as strange things begin to happen. Upon receiving a mysterious package from his predecessor - who inexplicably sent it to him without knowing who he was before supposedly slitting his own throat - he starts to realize more and more that the mirrors in the old department store hold something evil inside them. That evil begins to torment Ben and his family, targeting them while Ben starts to realize what it wants and what lengths it’s willing to go to in order to get them. He quickly becomes plunged into a race to satisfy the evil’s demands and find a way to stop it before everything he loves is destroyed.

Aja has never been a particularly capable director, consistently choosing style and shock over substance. This was the case in all of his films, particularly High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes. His style and shock are certainly on display in this movie, as he makes the Mayflower in particular a legitimately terrifying element of the movie. The dark building is home to old charred mannequins and ominously spooky dressing rooms, a place that would give anyone the willies by just imagining being inside. One of Aja’s strengths is his visual flair, and he throws some of his best work into the Mayflower, which is one of the most terrifying buildings seen in horror in quite some time. He also fills the movie with other strong visuals, such as an effective title sequence that shows images of New York reflected upon itself. The melding of the buildings with their reverse images is remarkably unsettling and sets the tone for the movie. Unfortunately, not all the visuals work as, for all his flair, Aja has not gotten the hang of using CGI effectively. There’s a particularly glaring example when Sutherland is covered with flames that are laughably bad in their realism, though other sequences, such as the jaw-ripping scene from the trailers, comes off nicer. Overall however, in the arena of mood and terrifying eye candy, Aja scores.

Where he doesn’t succeed nearly as well, however, is in his writing. Aja has never been a great writer, though the script here fares far better in its complexity then his previous efforts. He creates a story that is intensely interesting for the first two acts, deftly focusing on Benjamin and his growing paranoia - is he insane, or is he not? It’s not a new story arc for a horror character of course, but it’s navigated fairly capably. Meanwhile, the rules of the mirror world, where the nefarious doubles of the real world do unspeakable things, are an interesting aspect that’s nicely explored. One could make the argument that the mirrors are just a slight variation on the cell phones of Pulse and One Missed Call, but it never feels the same as those and, really, never feels like an Asian horror remake. Aja avoids the pitfalls of previous J-Horror and K-Horror remakes - no onryo here, thank the gods - and instead focuses on making the movie more universal. Unfortunately, while those are all pluses, there are several negatives, particularly as the third act unfolds and it moves from an interesting movie into a far more conventional horror film that gives a “seen it all before” feel. The plot twists get remarkably stupid and completely do away with reality—how does Jack get from a monastery in Eastern Pennsylvania (yes, according to this film there’s a Catholic Monastery - which is really a convent - in Pennsylvania) to New York in a matter of hours? Character development is casually thrown by the wayside in order to get the movie pushed forward, such as Ben’s supposed cop shooting incident, a plot device with lots of potential that’s pretty much ignored. It’s certainly not an absolute wash of a story and has its strengths, but by the time things start to fall apart, the audience starts to roll their eyes.

Much like the film itself does, Keifer Sutherland starts off pretty well as Ben. He seems a very interesting character at the beginning, someone who’s legitimately tortured by what’s happened to him and is trying to get on the right track. As the movie continues on, we see shades of Jack Bauer starting to come out. Sutherland never quite goes into full Jack mode, though he certainly conjures up some images of him as he becomes more take-charge and starts growling things like “Don’t make me threaten you!” Overall, it’s a performance that is as capable as the role requires, though it would have been nice to see Sutherland taking the character in a new direction. As his wife Amy, Paula Patton plays things a lot better. She plays the much harder straight man role to Sutherland’s erratic Ben, going from concerned and wary skeptic to terrified true believer with complete believability. Patton is far better represented here then she was in Swing Vote or Deja Vu, and looks to be able to move on to increasingly better projects. Sutherland’s other leading lady, Amy Smart, does a fine job in a role that is criminally short. Cameron Boyce and Erica Gluck are shockingly un-annoying as the children. Mary Beth Pell is solid if unspectacular as Anna, a character who will mean a hell of a lot by the end of the film; the rest of the cast are little more than window dressing.

Contrived plot devices and bizarre situations abound - for example, it’s never explained how the previous security guard got the package to Ben when he didn’t know who he was. There’s a lot of potential with the mirror world that seems wasted and underused, and Aja seems more interested with cool gore effects (of which there are many) then good plot threads. The film focuses far too much on jump-scares instead of legitimate terror, and this is unfortunate considering the wealth of potential the Mayflower has. But somehow, Aja manages to make the film float by on the strengths it does have. It’s certainly no great turn, but it’s not a bad one, either. A final plot twist is rare in that it’s one of the few twists recently to be effective, and it would have been amazing to see how that twist could be explored throughout the movie. Sadly, it’s likely that a host of Direct-to-DVD sequels will follow to explore that concept which will take what good there was and toss it out the window, making this movie seem better then it is by comparison. And the worst thing about that is, if this is proof of how Aja’s improving, it Direct-to-DVD may not be a career path deserving for him. And that, really, is the most shocking thing of all.

The 411: Fans of Alexandre Aja's previous efforts will find a lot to like in Mirrors, particularly the stylish look and amped-up gore. Surprisingly, non-Aja fans like myself will find a lot in that to like too, as well as a story that shows Aja's growth as a writer. It's not enough growth to really call this a great film, and Sutherland's Jack Bauer-esque performance doesn't elevate it into that category, though it's not a bad performance. Amy Smart and Paula Patton lead a decent supporting cast to prop Sutherland up through the weaker portions, and while some cheap CGI and a more lackluster and conventional third act drags the movie down, it's not down far enough to destroy it. It may not be a film that qualifies as great, but it's not bad either, and in the current downward trend of horror quality, that qualifies as an unexpected success. - Final score: 6.5

'Mirrors' a poor reflection of logic
By Jeff DeBell | Special to The Roanoke Times
Roanoke.com
August 16, 2008

2 stars
Rated R for language, blood-letting and nudity
One hour, 50 minutes

Conventional horror movies can be fun if you’re into special effects. It’s amusing to speculate on how technicians can make zombies, maimings and other conventions of the genre look so real.

Who knew blood from a sliced artery would spew clean across a room? So that’s what an esophagus looks like when the flesh is torn away. Cool!

But do the stories have to be so @#&%*# dumb? I’m not talking about psychological thrillers; I’m talking about the plain old blood-for-its-own-sake fright flicks that audiences inexplicably adore.

“Mirrors,” starring Kiefer Sutherland, is the latest case in point. Mirrors in the movie seem to reflect the likeness of the person peering into them, but the images actually are of lookalikes who’re trapped in mirror-land and bent on doing really nasty stuff to the poor boob who just wants to ruffle his do or check for teeth spinach.

It’s a cool story — if you can buy into haunted mirrors, and if you don’t mind a tale with more loose ends than a bucket of nightcrawlers.

Sutherland plays a New York City detective named Ben Carson who is on suspension, having unfortunately shot a colleague to death. While superiors investigate the incident, he takes a job as night watchman at what remains of a former luxury department store that was gutted by fire.

Ben immediately notices something fishy about the mirrors in the spooky place. Being a detective, he investigates.

Turns out the store was built on the site of a former mental hospital whose top doc was into a dubious therapy for schizophrenia - something involving mirrors. There was a mass suicide at the hospital and Ben senses a connection between that and whatever is lurking in the former department store.

At first, no one believes his story of haunted mirrors. Big surprise. But then those scary reflections show up in Ben’s personal life. There’s an inventive bathtub scene involving his sister (Amy Smart) that gore lovers will relish. His estranged wife (Paula Patton) and their kids also start seeing some pretty alarming stuff in the household looking glasses.

Once the old family-in-jeopardy thing is cranked into the story, Ben speeds to the rescue like any self-respecting hero. For the overrated Sutherland, that means jumping into the furious-man-of-action mold to which he reverts episode after tiresome episode on TV’s “24.”

An elderly nun doesn’t wanna leave her Pennsylvania convent to fight evil spirits in New York? No problem - just kidnap her at gunpoint.

Did I mention the missing schizoid child? The farm family straight out of “Deliverance”? Did I mention that none of it really ties together?

And the movie’s surprise ending? You won’t believe it. I know I didn’t.

Mirrors Movie Review
By moviemaven
MoviesOnline.ca
August 15, 2008

6 out of 10 stars

I frequently remark that horror is my first love so you can imagine that after enjoying this Summer's vast array of non-horror releases, I was leaping at the chance to check out this new flick from director Alexandre Aja. Sadly my excitement was short-lived as I was treated to yet another movie mess that had much more potential than it realized.

Visually, this latest Kiefer Sutherland vehicle was striking. Aja does a decent job with atmosphere as usual, even plunking us down for a bit in what seems for all the world like the real life set of Resident Evil. There were even some fairly gruesome moments to please the gorehound in my soul. The disappointment lies in the haphazard execution of a promising idea.

Sutherland is Ben, a New York detective who has been suspended from his job as well as estranged from his family due to an apparent problem with alcoholism that is frequently mentioned, but little more. In order to make some cash while he is awaiting reinstatement into the force, Ben takes up a position as night watchman for a burned out department store. Upon taking this job, he discovers that something odd is happening with relation to the mirrors within the store. He then discovers that his family may be in mortal danger if he fails to solve the mystery surrounding these events. Good thing he's a detective.

The idea that something inhabits the mirrors (as well as any other reflective surface around you) conjures all sorts of chill-inspiring fears. Take a look around you. There are reflections everywhere. So this should be a pretty scary film. How could it possibly go wrong?

Well, I'll tell you. From the beginning, I was having difficulty as this story seemed to take forever to get off the ground. I waited patiently for something spooky to happen. Luckily I am a patient person because it took longer than it should have to manifest. And when it did, there were so many holes in the plot that you could easily use it to strain your macaroni.

At first glance, you are given the makings of a very effective ghost story. However the real story behind the goings on is much more convoluted than it should be which proves to be distracting. If you are easily frightened (and I mean easily) you may receive a few good jolts. But seasoned horror fans will have nothing to fear...unfortunately.

At least the acting is passable. I have loved Kiefer since Stand By Me so I am always happy to see him make an appearance. Fans of Amy Smart shouldn't get too excited, we don't get to see too much of her... unless you count the full nudity she sports for a short while.

In the end, I found what I usually find with Aja films. They are pretty to look at and almost make you think something good is going to happen. He tends to get excited with the idea long enough to get a story started, then realizes (or perhaps he doesn't) that it doesn't make much sense so they always seem a little thrown together when all is said and done. Once you strip away the effects facade, you are left with a limp story and mounds of confusion followed by more questions posed than answers provided.

Movie Review: MIRRORS
Kiefer Sutherland as a man having worse days than Jack Bauer ever has
By T.K. Dehn, Contributing Writer
iFMagazine.com
August 15, 2008

Who would have thought that Kiefer Sutherland has a worst day than Jack Bauer in this occasionally scary movie that doesn't always follow its own rules

Grade: B
Stars: Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Amy Smart, Jason Flemyng
Writer(s): Alexandre Aja & Gregory Levasseur
Director: Alexandre Aja
Release Date: Aug. 15, 2008
Rating: R
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox

MIRRORS is one of those movies where comparing its good and bad qualities requires a metaphoric octopus. On the one hand, it’s really scary. On the other hand, it sometimes appears to mess with its own rules simply to add a scare. On the other other hand, the script by Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur, adapted very loosely from the Korean film INTO THE MIRRORS, does have admirably dense mythology. On the other, other, other hand, sometimes the mythology plays out in ways where the viewer is bewildered. On the other, other, other, other hand … you get the idea. However, it should be noted that a few of those extra tentacles hold a really good performance by Kiefer Sutherland, allowed by this role to show in-character softness and bewilderment, and production design that makes us nervous before anything even happens.

Sutherland plays Ben Carson, a former NYPD detective attempting to reverse a yearlong downward spiral after he accidentally shot an undercover officer. Hoping to reunite with his wife Amy (Paula Patton) and their two young children, Ben has stopped drinking and has just taken a job as the night watchman on the premises of a burned-out department store in downtown Manhattan. We see in the opening sequence that the previous night watchman was killed by his own mirror reflection. Ben starts seeing pretty horrifying sights in both the mirrors all over the dark, ominous department store and then at home. Worse, as he tries to find out what’s going on, he discovers that the mirrors can reach out to his friends and family as well.

There’s an explanation for how the mirrors got to be so powerful and frightful that’s pretty good, at least on the surface. However, some aspects of the story don’t stand up to scrutiny (for starters, why the day watchman seems immune to mirror issues, when it’s shown the mirrors can easily attack during daylight hours). There are seeming inconsistencies about what the mirrors can do on their own and can force living people to do, and there’s also an amazing gaffe when a “monastery” turns out to be a community of nuns. (Monks and nuns both live in cloisters, but monasteries, at least in English, are the dwellings of clerical men, while convents or nunneries or abbeys are the habitats of women.) As this uncaught piece of mistranslation goes along at some length, there’s a suspicion that nobody was making sure everything fit together, and sure enough, by the finale, we’ve got events where the mirrors start playing to what will scare the audience rather than their own agenda.

There’s also some tone-deaf dialogue and behavior. We can accept that Ben is panicked and distraught (any other reaction would in fact be strange in the circumstances), but it’s hard to believe he really can’t hear himself when he tries to explain things bluntly to his understandably skeptical wife, who in turn has some unfortunately on-the-nose lines.

Even so, at its best, MIRRORS has the ability to scare the funk out of us, which is the primary point. Production designer Joseph Nemec III deserves major kudos for transforming an unfinished Romanian building (New York exteriors are mostly the real thing, but interiors were done in Romania) into what looks like a gutted high-end retail establishment, with mannequins everywhere you wouldn’t want them to be, even before we get to those malevolent reflective surfaces.

Sutherland is highly sympathetic and brings with him an expectation of physical capability. Patton is warm and urgent as his spouse.

There are times where anyone thinking about it will want to ask the filmmakers, “If it’s been established that X is going on, then why does Y happen?”, but there aren’t too many moments in MIRRORS that are devoid of solid horror movie tension.

REVIEW: MIRRORS
By Devin Faraci
Chud.com
August 15, 2008

1 out of 10

Watching Mirrors you will go through stages. Stage one is slight interest - the pre-credits sequence is well done, and promises something intriguing. Stage two will be mild disbelief - could the movie actually have gone this badly off the rails only ten minutes in? Surely it has to pick up from here. Stage three is giggling, especially whenever Kiefer Sutherland opens his mouth and delivers another FURIOUS line of Jack Bauer-esque dialogue. Stage four is actual guffawing, probably more loudly than you laughed during Step Brothers. Stage five is realizing that this goddamned movie is almost two hours long and the joke is on you.

I really like Alex Aja and his previous movies, but he has not only made the worst film of his career in Mirrors, he's made possibly the worst film of the year. There's nothing about Mirrors that works outside of a couple of gore scenes, and it's obvious that Aja can do great gore in his sleep at this point. And when I say nothing works, I mean everything stinks - the acting is horrible, the story is ludicrous, the central conceit is beyond ill-defined. Even the production design is bad - large portions of the film take place inside an abandoned department store that completely burned... yet the store is filled with mannequins and the walls, which are scorched, are covered in untouched curtains.

Kiefer Sutherland plays a traumatized ex-cop who takes a job as the night security guard at that department store, which for plot reasons, has remained untouched since the fire that killed 20+ people five years earlier. While wandering the store he discovers that the mirrors inside are evil, and they have ghosts and they show him things that aren't true, and they can hurt him via reflection, and they can make him think he's being hurt via reflection and... well, who knows? The movie never sets up any sort of cohesive rules for what the mirrors can or can't do. In every scene the mirrors are capable of different things, without any rhyme or reason.

The evil mirrors aren't just in the store - all mirrors can house the evil. Actually, all reflections can house the evil, leading to one of the greatest lines in movie history, as Kiefer shouts (he's always growling or shouting) at his estranged wife on the phone 'Be careful of the water! It can create reflections!' And the mirrors have an agenda, one that they make difficult to understand; even though later exposition indicates that they would know exactly how to find what they're looking for. Again; no rules here.

It's worth noting that Kiefer Sutherland plays his character as an extension of Jack Bauer. It's impossible not to laugh every time he shouts 'Dammit!' (he even shouts 'Dammit!' after he gets a dossier of information he desperately needs. It's like a Tourettic response or something), or how he tries to solve every problem with a gun. That bit of lunacy reaches its pinnacle when he actually kidnaps a nun at gunpoint - I desperately wish I was making this up, but the plot of this movie calls for Kiefer to engage in nunnapping.

Kiefer has an aforementioned estranged wife and two kids, and he's always hanging around trying to protect them by painting over mirrors but leaving every other shiny surface in the house untouched. He also has a sister, Amy Smart, who shows up long enough to get naked in a bathtub and die spectacularly - but if you've seen the red band clip, you've already seen the best part of the entire film.

What Kiefer doesn't have is 'good acting.' His performance is shockingly bad, and his FURIOUS reactions to everything turn most scenes into laugh factories. The entire film is kind of a joke, but it's Kiefer who brings it to the level of being the funniest comedy released this year. Also terrible: everybody else, especially Paula Patton as the wife. Were she any more wooden she'd be sprouting pine needles, and her character appears to have more nipples than brains, so there's a big disbelieving laugh when it's revealed that she's a coroner. She's certainly attractive enough, so I'd be interested in a prequel where it's revealed how her character 'earned' her medical degree.

I don't know what Aja was thinking here. I've been on the record as a major supporter of his, through the reviled ending of High Tension and the controversial nastiness of The Hills Have Eyes. He has a nice shot or two here, but otherwise this is a movie made by someone with no control and little vision. The film is filled with plot holes that are obviously the result of last minute rewrites and f’ng around in editing; Mirrors feels like the usually gifted director is bumbling around in the dark, trying to find something, anything that will work. And nothing does. I'm hoping that this is just a misstep for Aja, and that his next film, a 3D remake of Piranha, returns him to the great trajectory he was previously on.

It's tempting to recommend this as a 'So bad it's good' movie, but at one hour and fifty minutes, Mirrors is too much of a tedious slog. At 90 minutes this would be the perfect film to catch with a six pack, but at almost two hours it's punishing. Walking in I didn't realize that Mirrors was a remake of a Korean film, but looking back it makes sense - the first hour is the sort of boring nonsense that seems to be the hallmark of Asian ghost stories. At least the movie is free of scary little girls with stringy black hair... oh, until the very end when the kidnapped nun, Sister Mary Shredded By Glass, turns into a possessed little girl who has a kung fu fight with Kiefer in a flooded utility tunnel. I know, this sounds terrific (especially the scene where nun-turned-possessed-girl licks Kiefer's face, or when she gets a steam pipe through her chest a la Commando), but restrain yourself this weekend! Mirrors is likely best experienced at home, where the fast forward button can come in handy, and where you can pretend it's an especially weird season of 24.

If you disregard my warning, go liquored up. Sneak in enough booze to maintain that buzz throughout. You're going to be in there a while, and you'll need all the fortitude you can get. But be careful - that bottle can create reflections.

'Mirrors': Demons take hold in Sutherland thriller
By Joseph Popiolkowski -- News Contributing Reviewer
Entertainment : The Buffalo News
August 15, 2008

Mirrors are more than just everyday items made of silver and glass in the aptly titled horror film "Mirrors." They're sinister, otherworldly portals full of evil sprits that manipulate the unlucky chosen -- to great visual effect.

"Mirrors"
Three stars
Thriller starring Kiefer Sutherland, Amy Smart and Paula Patton
107 minutes
Rated R for strong violence, disturbing images, language and brief nudity
Opened Friday in area theaters

In this remake of the Korean film "Into the Mirror," Kiefer Sutherland -- as Ben Carson, a disgraced NYPD cop -- does battle with demons, personal and otherwise. He takes a job as the night watchman at the burned-out Mayflower department store (in reality, a foreboding Communist-era structure in Romania, where most of the film was shot).

It's a hellish version of the British comedy "Are You Being Served?" set ravaged by fire and neglect, complete with charred mannequins but pristine mirrors concocted by director Alexandre Aja ("The Hills Have Eyes").

This raises a couple questions: Why does a derelict, boarded-up department store need a night watchman? Does the former AM&A's downtown have one? More importantly, how could a prime piece of downtown Manhattan real estate sit vacant for five years? The proffered excuse is a drawn-out legal and insurance battle. Maybe in Buffalo, but in the heart of New York City, there's money to be made and all parties would agree on that.

From Day One of his new job, Carson gets sucked into the site's nefarious history -- from the deadly fire set by his predecessor to its earlier use as an experimental psychiatric hospital. The movie's "Rosebud" is the elusive and cryptic "Esseker," which puts Sutherland in true Jack Bauer-mode as he uses his rusty police officer instincts to piece together the puzzle that will save him and his family. Carson's bartender sister (Amy Smart) -- whose only purpose seems to be fodder for the film's most genuinely shocking scene -- and estranged wife (Paula Patton) play the initial doubters.

Carson isn't targeted by the spirits because he's vain or self-centered a la "Mirror, mirror, on the wall.‚.‚." Nor is it because of the controversy surrounding his departure from the force. (Which brings up another question: Why does he keep newspaper clippings of the worst period in his life that drove him to drink and alienate his family? Does he plan on trying to redeem himself and his career? This is not explored.)

He has no connection to the property like Jack Torrance did in "The Shining." Rather, he's the unlucky mark of restless demons. And it's a genuinely eerie path they put him on.