Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with our first review of MIRRORMASK from Sundance. It seems that we should check off incredible visuals from our list, but we might need to pencil in a question mark next to the story area. Like I've said before, the story sounds remarkably like Jack Sawyer's journey through a fantasy world to find THE TALISMAN which can heal his mom and also save the good Queen and keep "the territories" safe from evil as written by Stephen King and Peter Straub in the '80s. However, I really do like the circus aspect and it seems Gaiman and McKean are going for a more surreal, dreamlike world. I'm really itching to see this. Hopefully we'll get a few more reviews in on this flick and will be able to make a consensus! Enjoy, folks!
Last night I attended the premier of Mirrormask at sundance. I am not going to get into the plot too deep, because the strength of this movie doesn't rely on its plot, but its visuals. This movie was written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Dave Mckean, who were both in attendance. The basic plot is we have a young girl(helena) who is part of a small performing circus and she resents her mother and father for making her perform every night. She is on the cusp of growing up(15 years old) and is in her rebellious stage. One night during a performance her mother takes ill, which may be due to helena saying she wishes she was dead. They take her mother to the hospital, where they are going to perform surgery. Helena goes to sleep the night before her mothers surgery and awakes(although it may be a dream) to find herself in a different world. A world where there is a light queen and a dark queen who balance out the world. The light queen is put under a spell and is put to sleep which unbalances this world and leaves no protection from the dark queen who is wreaking havoc on the land. Helena goes on a quest to try and find a magical item called the mirrormask, which should restore balance to the land.
Like I said earlier, the plot is not what the important thing about this movie, it's the visuals. I can't really accurately describe what this movie looks like. The best description I could think of is if you took the nightmare before christmas, the dark crystal, labryinth and put them all in a dali painting come to life, then you would have an idea of what this movie looks like. This world is filled with insane looking beasts and characters. Every frame is packed to the gills with stunning visual imagery unlike anything I've ever seen. The visuals alone are worth seeing the movie for, which is sort of a plus, since the story is a bit clichéd and slow sometimes. That isn't to say that the story is bad, but it just isn't on par with the look of the movie.
The main problem I had with the film is its soundtrack. It was so bad in some parts of the film that it was downright distracting. It was as if they got Kenny G to perform some contemporary, watered down jazz and added some funk bass. As the film progresses, the soundtrack does get a bit better and there is a wonderful sequences where these jack-in-the box type creatures sing a version of "why do birds suddenly appear" that is awesome. The second problem is the story. Like I said, it isn't all that bad, but it isn't all that wonderful either. I was really hopping the story would be great, but as it is, it is pretty good, which I guess isn't really a problem, it was just sort of a disappointment coming from the man who wrote the sandman comics. Maybe it was just that my expectations were too high, like I said, it wasn't bad and it passes muster.
The most shocking thing about this movie is that it was made for around 4 million dollars, which is absolutely incredible. This movie looks like it cost 10 times that amount. During the Q & A the director said that it was basically made by a team of 17 art students who were fresh out of school and they were each given there own chunk of the movie to animate.
So, if you have a chance to see this movie, make sure you take it. I will definitely be seeing this one again when it gets its theatrical release and I hope that Neil Gaiman and Dave Mckean make another movie together with a bigger budget. I can't even fathom what this would have looked like if they actually had a 40 million dollar budget rather than a 4 million dollar budget. It just goes to show you that one can make a beautiful movie for cheap.
Taylor
