Mirrormask 2005

Critics score:
54 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: With its mind-numbing excess of digital imagery and lack of compensatory storytelling, MirrorMask suggests that something of Gaiman's is getting lost in translation. Read more

Allison Benedikt, Chicago Tribune: For all its flying cats with rainbow wings and navigational library books, MirrorMask barely has a story, its talent and vision focused entirely on its singular dreamworld facade. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: It's so beautiful and so different and has such a unique feel to it. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The eye is sated, but the mind wanders. Read more

AV Club: Read more

Michael Senft, Arizona Republic: McKean's inexperience as a director trips the film. There is so much going on that the viewer can't take in all the imagery, and McKean's devotion to his skewed vision slows the story to a crawl. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Aggressive visual invention is rarely its own reward, and this movie does nothing to better the odds. Read more

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times: There is something oddly intoxicating about Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman's coming-of-age fantasy. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: At best, Helena's wiggy adventures recall such Jean Cocteau films as Orpheus and Blood of a Poet. At worst, they resemble the Vegas act of Cirque du Soleil. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Has something to astonish everyone. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: Each scene is a masterwork of composition and execution. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Mirrormask is as breathtakingly beautiful to behold as it is tedious to slog through. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: The fever-dream universe cooked up by McKean is so brimming with off-the-wall imagination, one wishes it weren't all so hard to penetrate. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: Like many dreams, you won't remember it when you wake up. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: If MirrorMask is a marvel of visual ingenuity, its monochromatic panoramas are too busy and flat to yield an illusion of depth or to convey a feeling of characters moving in space. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: A 30-minute idea wrapped in a 100-minute movie. It's a jewel box filled with cubic zirconia. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The narrative is simplistic and lacking in energy, and the characters are sketched instead of fully formed. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie is a triumph of visual invention, but it gets mired in its artistry and finally becomes just a whole lot of great stuff to look at while the plot puts the heroine through a few basic moves over and over again. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: Other efforts of this sort have succumbed to terminal whimsy, but director Dave McKean gives us enough reminders of the girl's fragile emotional state to provide some grounding. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It's a near-flawless marriage of content and form, a movie that kids, adults and graduate students of computer imagery will all have their own reasons to love. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Leonidas walks this tightrope quite engagingly, showing us a girl on the cusp of womanhood, torn between two competing needs -- to become an adult, to remain a child, to vilify, to revere. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Could be Exhibit A for anyone arguing the case that modern filmmaking lacks a strong sense of story. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: An overproduced novelty picthat looks and feels more like a company promo reel than an engaging piece of storytelling. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: The film galumphs along in static panels, prioritizing flash over thought, hyperextending a story that would barely sustain a children's picture book. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: So single-minded in its reach for fantasy, it becomes the genre's evil opposite: banality. Read more