“Close to You?” I came to Mirrormask with no expectations other than that the film was Neil Gaiman’s pet project, and anything Gaiman passionately believes in is something I wanted to see.
Mirrormask’s style is a combination of those psychedelic Beatles cartoons mixed with The Neverending Story, Legend, and Labyrinth – appropriate, since The Jim Henson Company helped create the virtual world where the movie takes place. At its heart, Mirrormask is about a girl, Helena (Stephanie Leonides) and her independence from her mother Joanne (Gina McKee). Like so many impetuous young girls in movies, Helena ranges from clingy devotion to her mother to feckless rage, and it’s during one of her darker moments that she wishes Joanne dead … which ends with Joanne in the hospital.
The guilt that this tantrum engenders in poor Helena is enough to send her on a Hero’s Journey. And wrapped up in this journey isn’t just a quest to save her mother, but to save herself; as an adolescent, there …
Product Description MIRRORMASK is the story of Helena, who works for the family circus, and wishes–quite ironically–that she could run away and join real life. But such is not to be the case, as she finds herself on a strange journey into the Dark Lands, a fantastic landscape filled with giants, Monkeybirds and dangerous sphinxes. Helena searches for the Mirrormask, an object of enormous power that is her only hope of escaping the Dark Lands, waking the Queen of Light and returning home. The long-awaited DVD boasts more than an hour of exclusive extra features. Fans can go Behind the Scenes with Dave McKean, have a conversation with Neil Gaiman in the Neil Talks feature, or watch the Flight of the Monkeybirds in the special featurette, along with many more exclusive features and scenes. This visually stunning film is the product of a collaboration of award-winning graphic novelist Neil Gaiman (creator of the much-lauded Sandman series), his frequent collaborator Dave McKean (Cages), and The Jim Henson Company, themselves no strangers to elaborate fantasies such as The Dark Crystal. and Labyrinth. As with the latter film, MirrorMask focuses on a young woman unhappy with her daily existence; here, the artistically inclined Helena (Stephanie Leonides), is at odds with her circus performer parents. When a careless insult appears to send her mother (Gina McKee) into a coma, Helena withdraws into the dark and elaborate world of her drawings, in which a scenario very similar to her predicament in the real world is unfolding. Gaiman and director McKean create arresting images to populate Helena’s world, and the Henson Company brings them vividly to life with CGI; though the story is occasionally murky, the fantasy elements are imaginative enough to enthrall what will undoubtedly be the film’s toughest customers–younger viewers. –Paul Gaita |
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Feast For The Eyes  One of the best fantasy, special effects films I’ve ever seen. Surrealism that totally engrossed me. I’d call it a masterpiece…. Interesting Visuals story is a bit flat and predictable… it’s boringly obvious what all the parallels are in the plot with the main and supporting characters. There were some funny moments, and some interesting dialogue… I practice ping pong in the nude in the mirror every day Also, the boy/girl love connection is a bit off. The girl seems way too young for the male love interest. I guess we’re supposed to believe 10 years passed by without the girl maturing AT ALL. I guess it could happen like it did in Star Wars except it still wasn’t convincing…. Visually STUNNING…but ultimately a bore 104 minutes later, my wife was asleep and my daughter barely awake. I was still watching, but felt guilty for having wasted so much time. The movie is STUNNING to look at…no question about that. It basically captures a feeling of a dream better than almost any movie in recent memory. A young teenage girl, feeling worried and guilty about her mother’s serious illness, falls into a dream inspired by her owned crazy drawings and driven by a growing need to rescue a “white” queen and vanquish (sorta) a “dark” queen. Both queens are played by the actress who plays the mother, so we immediately assume that story is how the girl will work out the conflict between herself, her mother and even her mother’s illness. The movie is fantastic to look at. It is highly creepy, and made us all question the PG rating…we thought PG-13 would have been more appropriate. The dreamland is populated by an assortment of disturbing creatures. Each new scene brought a new visual splendor. The film does not lack imagination. It’s like watching visual art come to life. For awhile, we were enthralled. But then it become quite obvious that the film had nothing of real interest to tell us through these visuals. The idea of a young girl working out serious problems in her life through dreams or dream-like incidents was just played out a million times better in PAN’S LABRYNTH (although, to be fair, MIRRORMASK is even more visually creative). The plot was quite skimpy and the journey of the young lady became repetitive and more and more uninvolving. It was simply hard to want to watch through to the end. I glanced at my watch every two or three minutes…thinking surely 15 minutes have gone by. Over the history of filmmaking, many visually stunning films have been made that stretched the boundaries of technical and visual possibilities. 2001: A SPACE ODDESSEY. NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. And like those films, MIRROR MASK failed to enchant on a basic story-telling basis. Before I forget, let me first praise Stephanie Leonidas, who plays the teenage hero of the film. She is terrific and I would have liked to see more of her performance and perhaps less upstaging by the visuals. The movie is an interesting failure. In most cases, a film that bored me so thoroughly would get no more than 2 stars, possibly just 1…but MIRROR MASK has too much creativity to simply get slapped down. But beware…it is tough to get through…. |
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What Do You Get When Your Director/Writer Is Also Your Production Designer? MirrorMask
MirrorMask is nothing short of the weirdest and most imaginative movies I have ever seen. It is also the farthest thing from a mainstream film as you can get, as 9/10 people will absolutely hate this movie. If you can get into as I did however, and appreciate all the visuals they were able to accomplish with an incredible 4-million dollar budget, then you’ll appreciate the subtle humor and originality of this film, throughout the pure strangeness of it all.
First off, this movie is purely a British production, so it highly retains a BBC-tone to the movie, and all the actors are completely unknown in the States, and by no-means stars in Britain. However, Stephanie Leonidas and Jason Barry are excellent in their roles, and really help draw you into the movie, giving you something to identify with. Because, with all the weirdness going on, it’s incredibly easy to lose yourself in the film, becoming lost in the vast land of the unknown. The actors and characters therefore must keep you focused, and they do this well. Of course, if the visuals weren’t enough to throw you off track, the story will. Sure, it could have been better, and it draws influences from many staples of the genre, but in-between all this, I still liked the movie.
Maybe it’s because of the subtle humor, that’s both witty and hilarious. Between the flying books, and the other strange assortment of characters in this movie, you almost can’t help but laugh.
Overall, chances are you’re going to hate this movie, and you wouldn’t be alone. There is nothing normal about this movie, and it’s part of the reason why it’s so good. Sure, the film could have been cut down 15 minutes or so, and the story could have been tweaked, but you might like what you see. It’s probably a one-time watching event, and who knows what Jim Henson would have thought of it. I personally think he would have loved it. It has Henson written all over it, from the characters, to the humor, to the the weirdness. I think he would have been proud.
The Librarian: ‘Take the book, if it goes back on the shelf, it’ll just depress the other books, causing them to huddle together and molt.’
Pure genius…
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