Review: Mirrors

I can't say I'm a fan of all those Asian horrors and their remakes. I don't find them scary and they are all pretty much the same to me. What's the difference really between The Ring and The Grudge? Mirrors wasn't on my list of 'must see movies' this year, but somehow I ended up seeing it twice. And not because I liked it so much the first time.

The great Kiefer Sutherland plays Ben Carson, a former detective turned alcoholic night watchman at a burnt down department store. He starts seeing things in mirrors. Boredom ensues.

Before I saw the movie, I pondered.. "a movie about evil mirrors.. I wonder how Alexandre Aja (who did a great job with The Hills Have Eyes) will pull this off." The answer is: he didn't, really. We have a surprisingly low amount of people in jeopardy here and not much is done with the actual mirrors, except for some cat scares. Actually, this movie relies a lot on fake outs and sound effects. I grew tired of that quickly. There's also a lack of interaction between characters. Seeing Kiefer go out and about on his own is not that interesting. You have Jason Flemyng in your movie, Mr. Aja, use him! There's a scene where Kiefer is on the phone to Jason, who plays a cop and friend of his. In this scene, we only see Kiefer.. there are no cuts whatsoever to Jason's character as we only hear him on the phone. Why? Why not use him? Flemyng is an appealing actor, but completely underused. Same goes for the lovely Amy Smart. She maybe has 7 minutes of screen time, while the movie is 110 minutes long (and about 20 minutes TOO long). Also, this movie has completely ruined Miss Smart for me.. I can never look at her the same way again. *traumatized for life*

Kiefer is a good actor, but he's just channeling Jack Bauer here. It really felt like I was watching a Jack Bauer movie.. you know, life after CTU and all that stuff. I hear Paula Patton is a talented actress, but she was channeling Maya from "Heroes". If you watch "Heroes", you know that's not a good thing.

Overall, I feel this is a poor movie. Taking away my lack of interest in these Asian horror remakes, I just feel like I've seen this movie already. It's one cliché after the other and predictable as hell. I did like the ending though. Let's just leave it at that. A 2,5/5.