Review: Mirrors 2 (2010)

Director: A lobotomized ape

Starring: Christy Carlson Romano's Boobs

Website: Do you really care?

This review is Not Safe For Work. Just warning you.

This has been…a test of my mortal strength. In my last review, of the first movie in the hopefully short-lived Mirrors franchise, I said that I would review these movies with a level head, and not get pissed off at them if I could help it. That was easy enough with the first movie, as it was only marginally offensive, but this one is just…ugh, it’s just horrendous! But I made a promise, and I’m going to fucking keep it. I won’t lose my temper at this movie either if it kills me! Folks, let’s dive into Mirrors 2.

First of all, take a look at the cast of this movie. In one corner, you’ve got Nick Stahl, otherwise known as John Connor from Terminator 3. In the other, you’ve got Christy Carlson Romano, who played Kim Possible as well as the sister from Even Stevens. So you’ve got a future apocalyptic resistance leader and a girl who hangs out with a naked mole rat in a horror movie about demonic mirrors. That’s the kind of weirdness we’re dealing with here, people.

And next, well…check out the opening of the film. It starts off with an extremely brief opening sequence in which an overdubbed narrator tells us that he made a mistake. We only see brief flashes, but we can assume that our protagonist, named Max, apparently crashed his car and killed his girlfriend by accident. So, what, is this a big PSA now? We fast forward to a year later, where an annoying night security guard at a department store who is NOT played by Kiefer Sutherland flexing his pecs and making dumb jokes into a mirror, because…you have to have pretty room-temperature intelligence to work this job, I guess. Things go awry, though, when his reflection decides he isn’t funny and forces him to eat glass. A bit harsh, but…on the other hand, does anyone else think this is a more gory version of a Looney Tunes trick? I could totally see Bugs Bunny, if he invoked the Devil or something, doing this to Elmer Fudd.

This is actually making a statement on modern orthodontist work. Look closely and you will see it.

Meanwhile our venerable Max, played by Nick Stahl from Terminator 3, is alive but tormented by grief and guilt. His father, who owns the department store from the first movie, which is now rebuilt in New Orleans, decides that he has the solution to this. What is his answer? “Hey, son! Come work for me as a night security guard! That will cure all of your problems!” Yeah, more like, “Hey, son, come work for me so I can pay you less than I would pay someone not related to me!” Family members always get you on the guilt trips.

He gets shown around the store, which doesn’t really have much to show, and introduced to the various people who are going to work there – among them Christy Romano from Kim Possible, playing a businesswoman or something; I don’t know, her character is only in the movie because she has boobs and was willing to get naked in a later scene. Meanwhile, his father continues to look like a metrosexual Jeff Bridges. The world is a weird place…but let’s just try and get this finished before I go catatonic.

Later that night we see Christy Romano doing what most hot horror movie girls like to do best, taking a shower. She looks at herself in the mirror and then takes off her clothes and gives us several full shots of her breasts, ass and pretty much the rest of her body in full. Not that I mind seeing it, but…can you think of a more pointless reason for a character to be in a film? Ever? “Ms. Romano, you’ve been selected to be in this film to appear for about 5 minutes, take your clothes off and then die.” ACTING ROLE OF THE CENTURY!

This exhibit is known in some circles as softcore porn, but in others as the only reason why Mirrors 2 was made.

While that’s going on, Max sees a vision of her in a mirror pulling off her own head. In the bathroom again, the cameraman makes sure to shoot as much of her more tender areas as he can as she trips on the floor, falls through the glass shower pane, breaks it, and then ends up on the floor as it decapitates her quite bloodily. And then Louis will get blamed for it.

"LOUIS!!!!"

Then Max goes to see his doctor the next day to talk about the visions he’s been seeing in the mirrors. His doctor tells him that the visions he saw are probably representations of his girlfriend who died in that car crash, and that – get this – it means he’s getting over it finally. Uh, no, I’m pretty sure people who see things that aren’t really there need MORE help, and are not anywhere close to actually getting over their trauma. How backwards is this doctor? Did she get her license Hunter Thompson style from some weirdo on the street? I seriously can’t fathom this. I mean, it’s completely backwards logic – seeing people decapitating themselves in mirrors means you’re on the way to recovery? This is stupid! Who wrote this? Who…okay, okay, simmering down now.

So next he finds out about Romano’s death and is freaked out about it. These two dumbass detectives are on the case. And then the next thing he knows, Max sees a reflection of one of the other guys from the building with his guts ripped out, and since it’s just so suspenseful as to what is about to happen next, we see the same guy in his apartment when his mirror starts torturing him. He gets killed too late for Max to arrive or for the police to save him, but the two detectives do interrogate Max for several minutes with no edits and no interesting dialogue to make it bearable. This movie is REALLY pushing my limits, let me tell you!

Woah, dude. This movie like, totally sucks.

After that Max is roaming the department store at night again, shouting at the mirrors like Sutherland did in the first film, but not shooting at them with a gun like Sutherland did. I’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. The ghost in the store for SOME REASON decides to use a beam of moonlight to show him a missing persons’ poster outside that we can assume is the ghost herself. Max finds her sister outside somehow the next day and starts off his conversation by telling her that her sister is in the mirrors. As expected, she thinks he’s crazier than all the mental patients in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest combined. Really, what did he expect, just telling her that her sister is actually in some mirrors at a department store? Acceptance with open arms?

Whatever he expected, it turns out that the girl, named Elizabeth, is pretty open minded after all, because after a few shitty transitions and rejected amateur photographs of the director’s neighborhood that I guess are supposed to signify that they’ve been walking for a while, she believes him wholeheartedly! Yup, he just tells her his life story and for SOME REASON (which I suspect to be a huge lapse of sanity and/or a huge drug binge on the writers’ parts), she just believes him all the sudden. And then we enter into what I like to call “How NOT to have conversations between characters in a cinematic production.” Max says something, Elizabeth responds, then stoic, stony silence. Rinse, repeat and then blow your brains out. It’s like the editor just died before he could get to these scenes; they literally just stand there with this really awkward silence for seconds at a time where there SHOULD be dialogue! Did they just forget their lines? GET BETTER ACTORS.

Then they go to see that guy from the beginning who was forced to eat the glass, who survived and now looks like the bastard child of Freddy Krueger and the Thing from the Fantastic Four. Oh, and his voice sounds like Gollum on helium. I’m just going to go ahead and skip this scene. They spend way too long here trying to pad out the movie like a bunch of ass monkeys, so I’m just going to tell you in one sentence what they take at least 5 wasteful minutes to do: He tells them that this one other guy from the department store is the one behind the whole thing, erasing security tapes and the whole nine yards. THERE. WASN’T THAT EASY?

It’s revealed that apparently the whole time, Christy Romano and that other douche drugged her water at some bar as some form of initiation (…to working at a department store? Huh?) and then she was date raped and strangled by the third guy who they just found out was setting things up. Wow. What a letdown. You go through this whole movie, full of decapitations and disemboweling, expecting something big, and what do you get? A fucking cop-out story about a rape and murder covered up by people who have shit to lose, just like The Grudge and Stir of Echoes and every other god damn movie ever made about ghosts. Why don’t you just kill yourself, movie? Why don’t you just go ahead and do it?

So yeah, then in a true rip-off of Stir of Echoes and probably a billion other ghost stories, they go digging in the store and find the sister’s body in some secret compartment or whatever; fuck it, I don’t know. Just end this goddamn movie already. But no, we still have a long, drawn out and retarded action scene involving the guy kidnapping Elizabeth but seeing her sister’s reflection in the mirrors when he tries to hold her hostage. They struggle a bit, throw some punches, push each other around and then the guy gets shoved into a mirror like those Mario levels where you jump through a painting to get there.

This movie would have been better to include things like this, I think.

So…wait. Let’s recap that. This whole movie has been about this one dead girl getting her revenge on the people whose fault it was. Okay. I got that. And it turns out she did kill all of the people who did it to her. Good for her; she should get a medal. But I ask you this, readers. Where in this equation is there ANY ROOM AT ALL for Nick Stahl’s character? What point was there in even HAVING him in this movie? He didn’t do anything. He didn’t save anyone. Why the hell was he here? It makes no sense! No sense at all! This movie has driven me MAD I tell you!

This movie is the bottom of the barrel, people. There’s nothing redeemable about this at all. It’s just a complete void of wretched, rancid crap. It’s got no substance, no scares, the acting is shit, the directing is shit…it’s just SHIT. And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Hey, didn’t he say he wouldn’t get angry at this movie?” Yes. Yes I did, but you know what? I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I am in control of my life, and I certainly am not about to let shitty-ass movies like this one rule my emotions. Fuck this movie! Fuck it to its core.

None of these images are mine. I take no credit for any of them.