It is true that horror movies can commit every sin in the cinema book if the scares are present. It can have bad acting, underdeveloped characters, an unbelievable storyline, and so and so forth but as long as it can scare you a decent amount of times its flaws can be overlooked. Mirrors is one such example of this; out with the scares this is a bad film but fortunately there are enough effective jump-scares to keep it watchable.
Ex-cop Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland) takes a job patrolling an old, burnt-out department store so he can support his family until he gets reinstated into the police force. Inside the store there are mirrors everywhere which soon start to give Ben horrific visions and before long they start to haunt not only him but his family and people he knows. In a desperate attempt to save himself and his family he goes in search of the answers behind why it’s all happening.
As with most horror films there is a certain need to suspend your disbelief to have any chance of enthralling yourself in the world which is set for you. Whether it be zombies, vampires, monsters, or demons you have to simply go along with what the film presents or it just won’t work. However a rule that Mirrors breaks is that it breaks even its own set of rules within itself. I can go along with this whole idea of the mirrors having a world within them and that it can affect the people and things within the real world. But the way in which it sets up everything calls for a plausibility factor at its conclusion but that couldn’t be further from reality with Mirrors. Right up until the last fifteen minutes or so I was just going along for the ride, accepting every ridiculous plot point after another. But where the film falls completely flat and loses the viewer is in its ludicrous twist that's just there for the sake of it; even the most inexperienced of filmgoers will be rolling their eyes.
I think it’s probably fair to say that poor Kiefer Sutherland is now typecast as the role he plays of Jack Bauer in 24. I’m sure he’s not complaining as the success of that show has probably made him enough money for the rest of his life but on the other hand he will probably always be looked at as the iconic federal agent. He’s not terrible here, in fact he’s probably one of the film’s strongest points, but it’s nothing anyone else couldn’t have done just as well. And it’s hard to take his character seriously a lot of the time because of the brainless decisions he constantly makes. All of his actions are simply there to further the plot with little thought given to plausibility.
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