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 Mirrors 

What grade would you give this film?
A 7%  7%  [ 1 ]
B 29%  29%  [ 4 ]
C 29%  29%  [ 4 ]
D 21%  21%  [ 3 ]
F 14%  14%  [ 2 ]
Total votes : 14

 Mirrors 
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Extraordinary

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Post Mirrors
Mirrors

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Mirrors is a 2008 horror film directed by Alexandre Aja, and stars Kiefer Sutherland. The film was first titled Into the Mirror, but the name was later changed to Mirrors. Filming began on May 1, 2007, and it was released in American theaters on August 15, 2008.

The film was originally scripted as a straightforward remake of the 2003 South Korean horror film Into the Mirror which is rated PG. However, once Aja was brought on board and read the script, he was dissatisfied with the particulars of the original film's story. He decided to retain the original film's basic idea involving mirrors, and to incorporate a few of its scenes, but otherwise crafted a new story and script for his version of the movie. Mirrors is the first Aja film to achieve an R rating without the need for scenes to be cut.

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Sat Aug 16, 2008 1:34 pm
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Orphan

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Post Re: Mirrors
Enjoyed it. Suitably gory with a nice layer of mystery and stylish direction. Paula Patton is a terrible actor though.


Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:39 pm
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Post Re: Mirrors
WOW, Joe you must have watched a different movie than I did. But I'll agree with you on Patton.

I found Mirrors to be a laugh out loud riot that was beyond stupid with amateurish special effects and some of the worst acting ever put on film. Sutherland basically plays a pussified alcoholic Jack Bauer wanna-be who hams it up to camera every chance he can. Paula Patton, while very nice to look at, can't act. She dragged down an already bad Deja Vu, and created a void in Swing Vote each time she appeared on screen. Here she just plain sucked. The story, if one can call it that, just kept devolving into a frustrating, insulting, mess with an unbelievably contrived predictable ending. This film was just beyond bad from start to finish.
For fun I chose to sit in our midnite screening with the 80 or so people who actually paid to see it and they hated it as much as I did. Every time there was a scary scene they all laughed, loudly.

Grade F-------

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1. Slumdog Millionaire
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9. Visitor
10. Iron Man


Sat Aug 16, 2008 4:54 pm
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Post Re: Mirrors
The Mr Pink wrote:
WOW, Joe you must have watched a different movie than I did. But I'll agree with you on Patton.

I found Mirrors to be a laugh out loud riot that was beyond stupid with amateurish special effects and some of the worst acting ever put on film. Sutherland basically plays a pussified alcoholic Jack Bauer wanna-be who hams it up to camera every chance he can. Paula Patton, while very nice to look at, can't act. She dragged down an already bad Deja Vu, and created a void in Swing Vote each time she appeared on screen. Here she just plain sucked. The story, if one can call it that, just kept devolving into a frustrating, insulting, mess with an unbelievably contrived predictable ending. This film was just beyond bad from start to finish.
For fun I chose to sit in our midnite screening with the 80 or so people who actually paid to see it and they hated it as much as I did. Every time there was a scary scene they all laughed, loudly.

Grade F-------



That's a lot more minuses than CW got. So I take it Mirrors was worse?

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Sat Aug 16, 2008 5:25 pm
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Orphan

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Post Re: Mirrors
Ev@n wrote:
The Mr Pink wrote:
WOW, Joe you must have watched a different movie than I did. But I'll agree with you on Patton.

I found Mirrors to be a laugh out loud riot that was beyond stupid with amateurish special effects and some of the worst acting ever put on film. Sutherland basically plays a pussified alcoholic Jack Bauer wanna-be who hams it up to camera every chance he can. Paula Patton, while very nice to look at, can't act. She dragged down an already bad Deja Vu, and created a void in Swing Vote each time she appeared on screen. Here she just plain sucked. The story, if one can call it that, just kept devolving into a frustrating, insulting, mess with an unbelievably contrived predictable ending. This film was just beyond bad from start to finish.
For fun I chose to sit in our midnite screening with the 80 or so people who actually paid to see it and they hated it as much as I did. Every time there was a scary scene they all laughed, loudly.

Grade F-------


Don't listen to Mr. Pink. He hates everything, especially horror movies.

That's a lot more minuses than CW got. So I take it Mirrors was worse?


Sat Aug 16, 2008 6:04 pm
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Post Re: Mirrors
Joe wrote:
Ev@n wrote:
The Mr Pink wrote:
WOW, Joe you must have watched a different movie than I did. But I'll agree with you on Patton.

I found Mirrors to be a laugh out loud riot that was beyond stupid with amateurish special effects and some of the worst acting ever put on film. Sutherland basically plays a pussified alcoholic Jack Bauer wanna-be who hams it up to camera every chance he can. Paula Patton, while very nice to look at, can't act. She dragged down an already bad Deja Vu, and created a void in Swing Vote each time she appeared on screen. Here she just plain sucked. The story, if one can call it that, just kept devolving into a frustrating, insulting, mess with an unbelievably contrived predictable ending. This film was just beyond bad from start to finish.
For fun I chose to sit in our midnite screening with the 80 or so people who actually paid to see it and they hated it as much as I did. Every time there was a scary scene they all laughed, loudly.

Grade F-------


Don't listen to Mr. Pink. He hates everything, especially horror movies.

That's a lot more minuses than CW got. So I take it Mirrors was worse?




Nah, I like Mr. Pink's reviews. I always read them. He may be a lot tougher than most but I don't mind. I personally think he gives great reviews.

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Sat Aug 16, 2008 6:11 pm
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Post Re: Mirrors
Creepy mirror people, meet Jack Bauer.

I swear, there's a point in this film where Kiefer completely took the role of Jack Bauer (involving holding a nun at gunpoint), and I wanted to cheer. This should be what happens to Jack in between Season 6 and 7.

But anyway, I really, really liked it. It's pretty gory and stylish, as one would expect from Alexandre Aja. Better than most of the stuff that has come out this year in the horror department.

***


Sat Aug 16, 2008 9:29 pm
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Sbil

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Post Re: Mirrors
It's too bad Paula Patton isn't getting good reviews for this film.

I thought she was phenomenal in Idlewild and very good in Deja Vu in 2006, enough to think she could become a breakout actress. Especially since there are very few good roles for African-American (although she's biracial) actresses.

Maybe she'll rebound from this and Swing Vote.


Sat Aug 16, 2008 9:33 pm
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Post Re: Mirrors
The Mr Pink wrote:
Sutherland basically plays a pussified alcoholic Jack Bauer wanna-be who hams it up to camera every chance he can.


That's pretty much the only way Sutherland knows how to act.


Sat Aug 16, 2008 11:30 pm
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Post Re: Mirrors
An incredibly dull and stupid supernatural horror film with very little to offer the audience. It's completely devoid of suspense and made up of almost nothing but jump scares, and it all leads to a climax that is almost hilarious in its awfulness. Granted, the abandoned mall that Kiefer Sutherland's character spends most of his time in certainly give off a creepy and atmospheric vibe. And I thought the sequence in the house at the end of the film was very well-directed and had the potential to be quite chilling. But it really ends there. Every scare in the film is predictable and unfulfilling - with most consisting of Sutherland apprehensively approaching a mirror before seeing (or more often not seeing) anything. The visual effects in this film were atrocious - I was appalled at how unbelievably phony some of it looked. The acting is quite mediocre across the board. Kiefer Sutherland is awful - he seems to be stuck in Jack Bauer mode here and the number of lines he screams furiously can become quite hilarious at times. Paula Patton is also quite one-dimensional, and Amy Smart gets so little screen time that she barely makes an impression. And, to top it all off, the film seems never-ending. It goes on for an agonizing 110 minutes and could have easily been edited. I definitely think the final "battle" in this film will remain one of my least favorite movie moments of the year, and the twist at the very end of the film was preposterous. I really enjoyed both The Hills Have Eyes and High Tension, but this is a major misstep for director Alexandre Aja. Somehow with this film he has reverted back to everything he seemed to stand against - and has directed a horror film devoid of any scares, suspense, story or purpose. D+

----

The Strangers, All The Boys Love Mandy Lane and The Ruins still remain the best horror films of the year for me. I'm actually kind of shocked at the generally positive response for this here. It was beyond ridiculous.


Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:26 am
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Post Re: Mirrors
I think I know why they decided not to make 'Night at the Museum' a horror movie...because it would've turned out like 'Mirrors.' Alexandre Aja, the director of the surprisingly decent remake of 'The Hills Have Eyes,' takes an interesting concept and does nothing interesting with it. Jack Bauer doesn't do much to make up for this, either.

The concept is simple: every time you look into a mirror, a spirit inside you on the other side - with its own suicidal agenda - tries to kill you. Or at least screw with you. Kiefer Sutherland portrays Ben Carson - a guy alarmingly similar to Ben Stiller's NATM character but far less fun to watch - a jobless, emotionally unstable ex-cop whose relationship with his wife (Paula Patton) and kids isn't particularly good. Trying to get his life back together, he takes over the job of taking care of this large, abandoned hospital (there's never an explanation as to WHY this thing needs to get taken care of if nobody's using it for anything), and he immediately begins to notice that there's something wrong with the mirrors.

The problem is, Kiefer Sutherland's attempt to act scared mixed with Aja's attempt to do the most ridiculous things possible with this mirror gimmick combine to make a movie that, yes, did occasionally scare me, but twice as often forced a laugh out of my friends and I. The problem with Kiefer's character is that even though terrible things keep happening to him at that hospital, he keeps returning each night, bravely venturing down into the dark, mirror-filled depths of its dark underground layer, to the extent of just being an idiot who should instead be getting the hell out of there.

It doesn't help that Aja frames some of these mirror scenes in a way that isn't that scary. Sure, he sometimes succeeds in getting you to jump out of your seat, but he too often either has his characters do something laughably stupid or doesn't end a scene on a scary note (example: we see Ben catch fire and roll around on the ground, helplessly trying to get it off, and then discover that this is only happening in the mirror, yet the camera pans to reveal that the 'real' Ben is doing the exact same thing on the floor, except without any fire. Yet we continue to watch him roll around in invisible agony for about twenty seconds. This isn't scary, it's funny).

As the film progresses, it gets a bit better, and we get to see more of Paula Patton, who is both hotter and better suited for her part than Sutherland, but even the final showdown is unnecessary and unremarkable. The very ending is a saving grace for this film, as it certainly isn't a cop-out ending and leaves you with that 'holy carp!' feeling, but that doesn't excuse the lameness of almost everything that comes before it.

D

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Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:15 am
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Post Re: Mirrors
5/10 -> C-

It's a very stupid horror. With Kiefer trying so hard not to be Jack Bauer, but ultimately failing at that.

A bit of a bump in grade only for a few chills and bumps that were good. Although that might be because the sound was unusually pumped up so when everything shattered it really shattered and you felt it. But whatever.


Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:51 pm
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Post Re: Mirrors
MIRRORS - 5/10 (C-)

The first half was AWFUL and beyond dull, but the second picked up a tiny bit. Not much though. And it actually wasn't as gory as I was expecting, except for maybe two scenes.


Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:12 pm
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Post Re: Mirrors
What the hell was the mirror's problem? It wanted Sutherland to find Essecer (or whatever) and while he was trying, the mirror tried to thwart his every turn. I can accept the mirror conceit as long as it has some internal logic.

There must have been a casting call for girls willing to show their ass and die five seconds later, because that is really all Amy Smart did. Not that Amy Smart is ever very interesting, it's just that the character was worthless and her ass isn't that nice.

I wanted Sutherland to shout "WHO DO YOU WORK FOR!?," but, alas, no.

D.


Sun Jan 18, 2009 1:30 am
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Post Re: Mirrors
zingy wrote:
Creepy mirror people, meet Jack Bauer.

I swear, there's a point in this film where Kiefer completely took the role of Jack Bauer (involving holding a nun at gunpoint), and I wanted to cheer. This should be what happens to Jack in between Season 6 and 7.

But anyway, I really, really liked it. It's pretty gory and stylish, as one would expect from Alexandre Aja. Better than most of the stuff that has come out this year in the horror department.

***


Haha yeah that was so Jack Bauer style. I loved it.

Agree with the rest of the review too. B+


Tue Sep 15, 2009 12:00 pm
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Post Re: Mirrors
I enjoyed it more the second time around.

3/5.


Fri Sep 18, 2009 3:36 pm
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Post Re: Mirrors
B-


Alexandre Aja is a gifted horror films director. Now I still haven't seen High Tension completely (just the first 30 minutes), but I liked his The Hills Have Eyes remake a lot and Mirrors had moments of great direction as well. He's certainly a more visionary director of horror than most of your average run-of-the-mill directors who bring out films like Prom Night or When a Stranger Calls.

Sadly, it seems, he isn't nearly as good of a screenwriter, though as Mirrors proves to have a good visual style, but a completely by-the-numbers storyline. Mediocre acting doesn't help the cause either. Paula Patton is not as bad as some reviewers suggest, but Kiefer Sutherland (who I love in 24) is really channeling Jack Bauer in several scenes here. I mean his "Don't make me threaten you!"-line actually had me laughing because I could really see that in a "24"-episode. Or maybe I already have seen that. Don't get me wrong, I love "24" and Jack Bauer, but Mirrors was not exactly the movie I wanted to see him in. A character like this fits movies like The Sentinel well, but Mirrors? Nah, I don't think so. In some moments Sutherland is actually pretty decent in the role, but then things happen like him forcing a nun to come with him at gunpoint...heh. Oh and the kid actors were just awful.

However, the movie was still good for some nice jump scares and the visual style was mostly aces. I loved the interior of the old burnt-out building and the mirror images were pretty well-done too. During the first hour, the movie's tense, atmospheric and intriguing. The two big kills are very well-done too, especially one involving a jaw and a bath. Well, that's going to remain as one of the goriest and most memorable movie kills of this decade, at least in my opinion. But two good kills and a very solid first hour don't make a perfect horror movie and it actually starts falling apart towards the end as the logical flaws become more and more. However, I probably still would have liked it a whole lot had it not been for the ending. First Jack Bauer fighting that demonic woman...I mean was that really needed? And then the very ending....it was fitting in a way, yes...but c'mon, we've seen that before. In fact I've seen similar endings multiple times by now (Silent Hill, The Dark) and it just doesn't get better by implementing it over and over again.

As I said above, Aja is talented (as a director), but this movie is mostly a waste of his talent. It's not bad, but except for one kill, there's simply nothing memorable about it.

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