Mirrors – DVD Review

Mirrors (Region 2)
A man whom we don’t know is running through a subway, we have no idea why he is running, but he looks scared. He finds his way to a locker room and tries to get out by way of a window, only he can’t. Suddenly the locker doors start to open and on the inside of each is a mirror, the mirrors start to crack and splinter, the man looks horrified, he repeats that he doesn’t want to die over and over before slitting his own throat with a shard of glass… so begins Mirrors.

Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland) is a suspended NYPD detective with a recently disowned drink problem who has taken a job as a night security guard in a burnt out department store called The Mayflower. He has taken the job to get back on his feet to provide for himself and his ex-wife Amy (Paula Patton) and Children Daisy (Erica Gluck) and Michael (Cameron Boyce).

He is shown around the place by the day watchman Lorenzo Sapelli (John Shrapnel) however before the end of his first night Ben realises that all is not as it should be. The mirrors show things that are not happening around him. The mirrors become menacing and he realises that there is something malevolent behind the glass. Something that if given the chance will destroy him and his family.

Frenchman Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes) helms this horror/mystery release and does a pretty good job too… at least in the first half which I found to be excellent in terms of both the tension that is portrayed to the viewer through the fast paced start with the guy running through the subway through to the brilliant set that they used for the actual department store. I found this particularly eerie and was interested to read in the extras that rather than a sound stage a lot of the interior shots were in an old, mostly abandoned building in Romania. This location is excellent in portraying how I would imagine a burnt out department store to look, with ruined counter tops, half burnt and melted mannequins casting a ghostly eye over the charred walls and floors, ash and debris everywhere but with perfectly clean mirrors sitting as a contrast between all the chaos.

It is also worth mentioning that the lighting in these initial shots around the stores are very well executed and really gives us a feel for what this place is. I felt that they really set the tone well. The second half of the film lost a little of what they had built in the first half as the film centred on his estranged family for extended periods of time and the film turns into a chase to solve the clues kinda movie. Whilst not terrible this did cause some of the tension and what I felt was fairly unique about the film to fizzle out a little during the final phases.

Acting wise the film stood up too, I’ve always enjoyed watching Keifer Sutherland and he delivers a convincing performance as an ex alcoholic detective who is suspended for accidently shooting a policeman, quite how he come to shoot a uniformed Police Officer is never explained but as Sutherlands character is portrayed as a good guy then I have to assume it was an accident of some description. But the little bit of back story on this is there to explain why him and his wife are apart at the moment and also explains some of the clue solving later in the movie.

Paula Patton plays his wife Amy, she doesn’t have much to do at the beginning of the film but her role comes more to the fore in the last two thirds, she is a strong, beautiful woman and holds her own against the very good Sutherland also has one of the worst lines in the film when finally realising her husband isn’t a fruitcake and some weird stuff is definitely happening within the mirrors by saying “I should have believed you” and she felt guilty about doubting him. That’s not her fault though, just a dodgy line that should have been removed from the script.

The kids are pretty good in it too, I generally find that kids can be a little wooden in films but these seemed fairly natural and comfortable in their roles, which of course didn’t hurt the movie one bit.

Overall I found Mirrors to be an enjoyable movie, the first half is definitely better than the second, but even falling into a fairly generic movie towards the end doesn’t make it a bad movie. But you won’t be keeping a wary eye on your reflective surfaces afterwards.

The Disc
On inserting the disc you get the option between theatrical and unrated version, nothing else. I went for the unrated version. After you have chosen this you go through to the more familiar menus such as special features, scene selection etc.

Once the disc is in we get play, language, scene selection and special features, language has English 5.1m English audio descriptive audio 5.1 dolby, Italian, castellano. There are also subtitles in various languages.

Extras
Play Theatrical/Unrated Version depending on which option you chose at the beginning.

Deleted and Alternate Scenes:
Here you can play them all or individually either with or without commentary there are 7 deleted scenes and an alternate ending to view. The usual reasons are there for deleted the scenes although they are mainly because they didn’t really add anything to the story.

The sound quality on the alternate ending is a bit naff, obviously not being polished up to release standard something they admit to in the commentary. They had added a few shots and taken a few away, it didn’t really alter the ending, in fact it gave less away about the end so I think the one they went with was the better of the two.

Reflections: The Making of Mirrors:
A decent making of documentary that covers all aspects of production of the film, covering the story, cast, production etc so we get a good idea of what went into the making of the film. An annoying thing here is when the editor speaks as he only speaks French, whereas everyone else does manage English so you will need the subtitles on, but only for a few minutes dotted around the film.

Behind the Mirror:
This extra has some of the actors and crew talking about the general mythology surrounding mirrors.

Weblinks to three fox websites

Ratings for disc overall

Film:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Overall: