Language - English
Genre - horror, witchcraft
After
her father's death Megan and her mother move to a new town in
America. Megan has trouble fitting in at her new school and is
picked on by the popular kids until she realises that she can call up
on magic from a mirror that was left in her new house from the
previous owners. Megan begins to use the mirror to get revenge
on the bullies and to help her friend win the school election but is
she controlling the power or is it controlling her?
Mirror
Mirror is a film in the same vain as the ‘Craft’ and ‘Heathers’
and focus’ on the new girl who is trying to fit in it to the
a new environment. Megan is obviously new and different
because she’s in black Goth/rock clothes and everyone else in
the school is in pastels, Chaleen and her group of popular girls are
all in very pale colours and Nikki is in darker pastels. This
point seems to have been taken a bit far as i haven't seen many
schools (which don’t enforce a uniform) where all the pupils dress
almost identically and even in similar films there are different
groups even if the ‘new girl’ is normally steered away from them.
After
a short scene from the past the film starts off quite slow. We
are introduced to Megan and her mother and we are shown the politics
of the school with the class elections coming up with Nikki as one
main candidate and Chaleen as the other. Chaleen instantly
starts mocking Megan which and it’s Nikki who helps her. Now
there was no reason it had to be Nikki who helped but i suppose for
narrative purposes it helped.
One
of the problems with Mirror Mirror is that it seems to start a couple
of plot lines that could have taken the film in totally different
directions but then it just seems to leave them. When Nikki
first becomes friends with Megan Ron (Nikky’s boyfriend) says that
he doesn't want Megan to become another one of her ‘lost causes’
hinting that Nikki has a habit of trying to help other girls in a
‘Clueless’ kind of way but we never see or hear of any of
Nikkis previous causes, in fact we don’t see any any of Nikkis
other friends. Nikki never tries to change or help Megan fit
in, if she did then there may have been a few less deaths.
There
is also Nikki’s mother. she starts out as distant, not
noticing that Megan is having problems. When she is talking to
the Psychiatrist on the phone she is too busy talking about her self
to answer any of his questions about Megan but then she changes with
very little provocation and tries to be nice to Megan. If they
had kept the mother self centred then it would have helped in the
build up Megans problems or they could have had her always trying to
help but failing making the ending a bit more tragic.
In
a way this is what is wrong with the film, none of the characters
seem to be pushed far enough. Charleen’s bullying is a bit of name
calling and dressing the same as Megan for a joke. Nikki talks
to Megan but doesn’t seem to much to help her fit in. Megan's
mom doesn’t seem to much and the antiques dealer is pretty much
useless. Megan herself seems to go from shy solitary goth to
full blown killer witch in on scene, although that could be passed
off as the mirror manipulating her.
The
Mirror is one of the better characters, through flashbacks and dairy
reading we learn enough of it's back story and it has clear
motivation. There are a couple of versions of the film with the main
difference being how much of the demon you see. The actual daemon
doesn't really add much to the plot of the film as it does most of
it's work via the mirror but it does add a bit more tension to the
end of the film when it is included.
For
all of its problems Mirror Mirror is still quite a good film and, if
you are a fan of films like the Craft then you will probably enjoy
this.
Mirror
Mirror has 3 sequels which will be reviewed over the next few weeks.
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