Toni Salabasev/20th Century FoxA Review in a Hurry: Kiefer Sutherland stars as a security guard who spends his nights trolling a burned-out department store. Everything is ashen and destroyed. Everything that is, except the mirrors.
The Bigger Picture: The great thing about the horror genre is that it can get a lot wrong with bad acting and dumb plots as long as it gets the eerie mood just right. Think of it like a funhouse, if the setting is creepy that's usually enough. Who cares if the hero makes the mistake of going down to that dark dank basement as long as what's down there is terrifyingly awesome?
French director Alexandre Aja has made one good scarefest (High Tension) and one really, really bad one (The Hills Have Eyes.) With Mirrors he splits the difference. A department store that's been destroyed by a fire is beyond unsettling. The charred mannequins alone are enough to make you shudder.
Unfortunately, the titular ghouls are a washout. Kiefer and costars Paula Patton and Amy Smart spend most of the film looking at their own reflections and getting freaked out by seeing their faces CGI'd into a gory mess. Every carnival has those big and tall mirrors, but how much time do you really spend looking at them? In Mirrors, way too much.
The 180-a Second Opinion: Fans of 24 will still be pleased that this is essentially Jack Bauer defending us against terrorists...ghost terrorists. And who can't get behind that?