Mirrors Review
By Jesse Hassenger
Ben (Kiefer Sutherland) is a newly-hired night security guard at that department store, and during his patrols he's been seeing disturbing stuff in the mirrors -- charred bodies, horrible wounds, people screaming for help. This seems like an excellent time to slack a bit at work and hang back in his security trailer, but Ben persists with an investigation.
Before he actually gets anywhere, we spend a lot of time with the Sutherland character, who seems frustrated over his inability to torture his way through this wan mystery. His grim overacting recalls eighties action heroes, with a pinch of Shatner thrown in for good measure, as he anguishes over his estranged wife and kids. The idea is that no one believes this disgraced cop and recovering alcoholic when he talks about the evil mirrors, but the movie doesn't bother with a shred of ambiguity to make all of the yelling and emoting more interesting for the audience. Eventually other characters realize Ben is telling the truth, and the story picks up a little, but only halfheartedly.
Apart from a bit of creepy imagery, Mirrors is tedious, and an odd choice for a director whose movies, good or bad, tend to set their sights far over the top. Stripped of much of his usual energy and viscera, Aja doesn't appear to have much facility for character-driven suspense -- he simply punctuates the slow-creep-plus-jump-scare formula with a handful of his trademark grotesqueries.
This places the movie in a strange realm between turgid PG-13 horror and excessive R-rated gorehounding, where the former shakes itself awake with a little of the latter. It's actually rated R but, unlike Aja's previous films, it doesn't seem fully committed, like an "unrated" DVD version of itself. Or maybe it's like an evil reflection of itself in a haunted mirror that causes the original movie to cut itself up. If that sounds even remotely spooky, Mirrors still probably won't do much for you.
Seven more years of bad movies.

Facts and Figures
Year: 2008
Run time: 110 mins
In Theaters: Friday 15th August 2008
Box Office USA: $30.6M
Box Office Worldwide: $72.4M
Budget: $35M
Distributed by: Buena Vista
Production compaines: Regency Enterprises, New Regency Pictures, Luna Pictures, ASAF, Castel Film Romania
Reviews
Contactmusic.com: 2 / 5
Rotten Tomatoes: 14%
Fresh: 12 Rotten: 73
IMDB: 6.2 / 10
Cast & Crew
Director: Alexandre Aja
Producer: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur, Alexandra Milchan, Marc Sternberg, Moritz von der Groeben
Screenwriter: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur
Starring: Kiefer Sutherland as Ben Carson, Paula Patton as Amy Carson, Amy Smart as Angela Carson, Cameron Boyce as Michael Carson, Erica Gluck as Daisy Carson, Jason Flemyng as Larry Byrne, Darren Kent as Jimmy Esseker
Also starring: Alexandre Aja, Alexandra Milchan, Marc Sternberg