Movie Review: Mirrors

An ex-cop (Kiefer Sutherland) and his family are the target of an evil force that is using mirrors as a gateway into their home.

I love Alexandre Aja's movies and I really wanted to love this film too, I just couldn't do it by the end. First off, I thought the movie was too long really. At least 20 minutes could have been trimmed back with no problem. Secondly, despite a few cool, spooky scenes, if you've seen the trailer to the movie you've already seen most of them. It's short on gore and scares and turns out to be just a typical ghost story except that the spirit uses mirrors to communicate. Still, it's got a few moments of fun and some good scenes, just not enough.

Kiefer Sutherland is solid as the trouble ex-cop, but the ridiculousness of it all kept me from really identifying with his character. At least they did cast sexy costars Paula Patton and Amy Smart to take my mind off the goofiness of the plot, but the screen mostly belongs to Kiefer and CGI spooks. Amy Smart has a great bathroom scene (no, not that she's naked, although that helps) that may be the best gore in the film. It's also a nicely atmospheric and suspenseful for the most part.

And I actually liked the ending "twist", it's just that by the end I was pretty bored with the whole silly concept. Perhaps I'll track down the Korean version, Into The Mirrors, that this was a remake of, because I sort of like the idea of mirrors being a spirit portal and think it could be done better.

Which sort of sums up my feelings on this movie... it's OK really, it just could have been much better.

6/10