Mirrormask

The audience that showed up for the Sundance premiere of this gem was quite diverse. Some came for Neil Gaiman, some for Dave McKean and the rest for the Jim Henson legacy. Based on my informal polls conducted in waiting list lines around Salt Lake City, everyone got what they wanted.

The visuals -- as you would expect from a move involving Henson's company -- are simply stunning. Most of the movie is blue-screen, which is quite unbelievable for a movie made for a mere $4 million. The human actors blend into the gorgeous painting-like backgrounds (google McKean's art and you will understand that this is quite a feat), and do an outstanding job of interacting with the digital characters.

Only 17 people -- all freshly graduated students -- worked on the animation, but the result looks like 170 professionals did. It should be noted however that Dave McKean spent 18 months in post-production, pretty much 24/7.

The weakest part of the movie is the story. Dave and Neil came up with the outline over 3 days, and worked out the details as they filmed. The end result is a run-of-the-mill Alice in Wonderland rip-off, with some elements from Labyrinth and other familiar children's tales.

I have to give extra credit to Stephanie Leonidas, who does a great job bringing Helena, a girl who ends up lost in the world of her Dali-meets-Picasso-meets-McKean drawings, to life.

I hope this movie will get picked up for theater distribution, because it deserves to be seen on the big-screen. In any case, McKean fans will be happy to hear that a Mirrormask picture book is in the works that will contain the 1700 drawings produced for the movie...

If you get a chance, go see this movie. It should be fun for children of all ages. If it comes to theaters, I will go see it again, and will give it an A again :)

This is a visually mesmerizing film that takes movie fantasy into new territory. Think Alice in Wonderland meets Wizard of Oz performed by Cirque de Soleil. MirrorMask takes a comic-book approach to Good vs. Evil, with 15-year-old Helena as the protagonist who must find the MirrorMask and save the Light Kingdom.

But the story isn't nearly as important as the fantastic creatures and hallucinatory imagery that parade non-stop through Helena's fantastic journey. Director and writer (and frequent collaborators) Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman leap into the movie business with extraordinary confidence and derring-do. They are both legendary successes and have a devoted fan base from comic books (the Sandman series, for one), novels, short stories, posters, CD art, and much more.

It quickly becomes clear that MirrorMask is the creation of talented and imaginative artists completely unfettered by the bounds of traditional film-making. As a result, it is a bold departure from anything you have ever seen on the screen before. The story is simple enough and the visuals so wondrous that most children should find the movie enjoyable (unless they've become action-oriented adrenaline addicts). Yet the writing is sufficiently deep to satisfy the most thoughtful of adults.

I spoke to both McKean and Gaiman at one of the Sundance screenings and found them both polite, thoughtful and interesting. I told them that MirrorMask was the kind of movie I wanted to see again immediately. It is lovely enough to warrant a second look. And there's enough meat on the bones to go back and catch what you might have missed. The last movie I felt that way about was Memento, one of my all-time favorites.

I'm another of those who saw this at Sundance, and all the things I enjoy about Gaiman and McKean's graphic novels were on display: the quiet humor, the intelligence, the delightful weirdness, the astounding visual vocabulary. Except that in this case, the words are spoken by good actors, and all those visuals get up off their feet and move.

It's hard to describe the impact of watching a McKean painting move and talk. There might be those who quibble about the movie looking too animated, but of course that's exactly the point: to create a world and make it dance. The end result, visually at least, is like nothing you've ever seen before, and absolutely worth seeing for that reason alone.

Some of the people I talked to after the screening also loved the visuals but felt the story was a bit dull, that they had seen it all before. Well, it's true that the story does wear its influences on its sleeve--a little "Alice in Wonderland" here, a little "Time Bandits" there, a lot of "Wizard of Oz" over here, not to mention a resemblance to Gaiman's own "Coraline." But I'm just as familiar with those stories as anyone else, and the resemblances never interrupted my enjoyment of "MirrorrMask"--after all, it's what you do with a story that determines its success. And from moment to moment, there was enough innovation and cleverness, enough delight and wonder, to make the movie a positive delight.

I can imagine kids sitting in the audience with their eyes agog; and I can imagine their parents sitting next to them, just as agog for a whole different set of reasons. "MirrorMask" may or may not be too wild to be a full-out commercial success; but I predict it's going to have a long, long shelf life. I know I'll be buying the DVD as soon as it's available, so that I can show it to people and say "Wait till you see this."

I have just returned from seeing this wonderful little film. From the summary, it is obvious to most that not only is this, for the most part, a children's film, but it borrows from the classic "girl trapped in another world as a metaphor for growing up". We're even treated to a brief shot of a man juggling glass balls a la David Bowie in "Labirynth". The obvious "Alice in Wonderland-esquire" story makes things a bit predictable since we've seen it several times, but if one were to sit back and enjoy the magic and the characters, then enjoyment is practically guaranteed. It is a very family-friendly movie because of this.

At the same time, the art crowd will instantly recognize the names of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Gaiman is the author of such novels as "American Gods" and "Neverwhere" and also is a comic writer that reached fame with his metaphysical masterpiece series "The Sandman". McKean, likewise, is a famed graphic designer and also worked with Gaiman on "Sandman". They have both collaborated on children's books as well. McKean's brilliant design work and Gaiman's delightful characters are evident throughout. Those seeking more cerebral movies will not be displeased.

The only negatives of this movie is that it slows a bit in some places and the effects are sometimes "too pretty" and might be a distraction. These are only two small drawbacks in what is otherwise a great film. I know I will not be the only one hopeful that this will be the first in many movies that will be involved in the Jim Henson Company's comeback.

Title: Mirrormask (2005)

Director: Dave McKean

Cast: Stephanie Leonidas, Gina McKee, Rob Brydon, Jason Barry, Dora Bryan

Review: Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman have partnered up in the past to write some visually astounding children's books. McKean would take care of the artwork and Gaiman would take care of the story. This time around they have joined forces to create a film that very closely resembles their previous colaborations. Only this time around, the images move and actors say the words in this way helping to bring McKeans art and Gaimans words to vibrant life.

The story in Mirrormask is about a young girl called Helena. Her parents run a circus and she has been brought up in the circus environment, but lately shes been feeling like shes not really cut up for circus life. Helena and her mother have a fight about her not wanting to be in the circus anymore and she wishes her mother would die. On that same day, her mother falls ill and ends up in the hospital and Helenas conscience begins to bother her, after all, she did wish her mother was dead. And now she is close to dying. So once Helena falls as sleep thinking about all these things she enters her imaginary dreamworld where everything has a representation of what she knows from real life.

This is a very visual film. McKean fills the screen with his lush imagery. If you've seen McKeans artwork and know how beautiful it is, then you know how incredible it is to see his pictures come to life on this film. This movie is eye candy, and for those of you out there who love art and love films that give their utter most importance to their visual aspect, then you will love this movie. McKean fills the screen with really outlandish, strange, weird and dreamlike situations. Nothing is what you would expect.

Some people might feel that this type of movie is all style and art and no substance simply because its such a visual film. But I sincerely think that this is not the case with Mirrormask. With a writer like Neil Gaiman in charge, well, you can almost tell that the movie is going to have some deep psychological themes going on for it. And it does. Every character, every situation, every word spoken in Helenas dream world means something in Helenas real life. So be on the look out for those comparisons.

The movie has some truly astounding sequences that left me breathless and my jaw was dropping. First there was the giants orbiting sequence with these huge stone giants floating in the air and then there's this sequence in which Helena gets transformed into a dark princess that is simply amazing. They really did a good job of mixing music with visuals in that sequence. You'll just have to wait and see it to understand how beautiful it is.

This movie wears its influences on its sleaves and has no problems in showing that. There's many similarities between this movie and Labyrinth, Legend and most of all The Never Ending Story. Its the only thing I didn't love about this movie. It felt like they remade The Never Ending Story with elements from Labyrinth and Legend. Take all those movies, shake em together, add a little bit of psychological depth and incredible visuals and you've got Mirrormask. So if there's anything bad to say, its that in its narrative, its similar to a few other films. But on a visual level, its a whole other thing, so that sort of balances its self out.

I liked the fact that Helena wasn't a dumb little girl. She was very head strong and very smart. She wasn't a dumb little girl stumbling across a strange landscape. She was quick and witty and she realizes the situation in which she is in quickly and I liked that about her character which was very well played by Stephanie Leonides.

So in conclusion, this film will blow you away with both its visuals and its story. Its a mixed bag of other films you've seen before story wise, but on a visual level the film will be like nothing you've ever seen before.

Rating: 5 out of 5