Reviewed by Craig McPherson
Stars Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Cameron Boyce,
Erica Gluck, Amy Smart, Mary Beth Peil,
Jason Flemyng, Julian Glover
Written by Alexandre Aja & Gregory Levasseur
Certification US R
Runtime 110 minutes
Directed by Alexandre Aja
Consistency, it would seem, isn’t Alexandre Aja’s forte. Between 2003 and 2006, on the strength of his breakthrough Haute Tension (High Tension/Switchblade Romance) and remake of The Hills Have Eyes, the Parisian director found himself ensconced as a charter member of the “splat pack” ,alongside such horror notables as Darren Lynn Bousman, Neil Marshall, Greg Mclean, Eli Roth, James Wan, Leigh Whannell, and Rob Zombie. However whereas many of his contemporaries have continued to mature and refine their talent, Aja has found himself stuck in neutral of late, serving as screenwriter for the merely passable P2, and now missing the mark completely with Mirrors, a film on which he doubled up as writer and director.
Based on the 2003 Korean film "Into the MIrror", Kiefer Sutherland stars as Ben Carson, a former New York City police detective whose history of alcoholism and wrongful shooting of an innocent during the line of duty has him struggling to put his life back together. Carson’s inner demons, coupled with his landing a job as a night watchman in a burned out department store whose mirrors appear to play tricks on the mind, hint at a promising tale designed to blur the line between reality and psychosis. Instead, Aja and screenwriting partner Grégory Levasseur completely drop the ball. Early on they establish Carson’s dependence on powerful prescription medication to curb his desire to drink. They also show him stumbling upon a bottle of whiskey during his first night in his watchman’s cabin, yet they fail to use these plot points as anything more than red herrings, instead opting to spin a story about a malevolent supernatural force trapped in the store’s mirrors and bent on escape. Sure it might be faithful to the original, but clearly there was room for improvement that was passed over.
I’m starting to wonder if the lure of large Hollywood budgets and marquee value stars has conspired to make this talented director grow lazy. Even his penchant for eye catching visuals is spoiled here as the interior sets appear to be a blatant re-hash of those used in 2006’s See No Evil. And don’t get me started about his reliance on pigeons fluttering for cheap scares - a tactic resorted to so many times I lost count.
The end result is a tepid tale that’s largely devoid of chills as it aspires to be yet another shoddy Exorcist variant, all of which is too bad given the possibilities of what could have been.