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91This dazzling reverie of a kids-and-adults movie, an unusual collaboration between lord-of-the-cult multimedia artist Dave McKean and king-of-the-comics Neil Gaiman (The Sandman), has something to astonish everyone.
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91Mirrormask is a gorgeous psychedelic cameo of a movie.
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If "The Wizard of Oz" were reborn in the 21st century, it might look a lot like MirrorMask. A product of the Jim Henson laboratory, the film is endlessly inventive with creativity to burn.
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75Not everyone's cup of tea, but a strong, heady brew.
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75Richly inventive.
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75Though the story meanders, the film's look is nothing short of breathtaking.
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75At 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.
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70Episodic, detached, and lacking in drive, but packed with amazing, hallucinatory dream-imagery that makes real dreams look flat by comparison.
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70The movie combines drawings, photos, hazy filters, superimpositions and computer effects into a pastiche both beautiful and disturbing.
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67If you're not already smitten with all things Gaiman, you may well find yourself, like Helena, a stranger in a strange land.
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Too strange and disjointed to attract much of an audience, but its astonishing visuals showcase a major new talent: first-time feature director and book illustrator Dave McKean.
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63The surreal visuals are relentless, overpowering the narrative much as they do in the frames of comic books (sorry, graphic novels).
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60What it makes up for with sheer visual magic it lacks in coherent plotline.
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60A truly unique fantasy, McKean's screen debut is tangled but promising.
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58What remains is a sumptuous-looking film that sniffs at but ignores deeper Freudian implications.
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50Watching MirrorMask, I suspected the filmmakers began with a lot of ideas about how the movie should look, but without a clue about pacing, plotting or destination.
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50It's hollow.
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50Like many dreams, you won't remember it when you wake up. The style obliterates any emotional attachment.
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50The narrative is simplistic and lacking in energy, and the characters are sketched instead of fully formed.
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50Crafted by hand and computer, Mirrormask is as breathtakingly beautiful to behold as it is tedious to slog through.
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50The teenager's journey through a nightmarish reverie presents hallucinogenic imagery that simultaneously dulls the senses and hot-wires the imagination, but it never fully engages emotionally.
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50Astonishing and frustrating, the fusion of live action and computer animation created by the Jim Henson Company in MirrorMask is an example of too much lavished on too little.
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50Like the recent Japanese import "Steamboy," this is worth seeing for the artwork alone, but it's so furiously overimagined it may leave you feeling dulled.
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40The film galumphs along in static panels, prioritizing flash over thought, hyperextending a story that would barely sustain a children's picture book.
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40Emerges as an overproduced novelty pic that looks and feels more like a company promo reel than an engaging piece of storytelling.
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38Aggressive visual invention is rarely its own reward, and this movie does nothing to better the odds.
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30So single-minded in its reach for fantasy, it becomes the genre's evil opposite: banality.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 15
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Mixed: 0 out of 15
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Negative: 2 out of 15
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LayneM.10
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Mobius9