Mirrormask

PG

Released Sep 30, 2005

1h 36m

Fantasy

Adventure

List

54%

89 Reviews

Tomatometer

80%

50,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

A 15-year-old (Stephanie Leonidas) journeys through a parallel reality to recover a powerful charm that will revive a queen.

Read More

Read Less

Watch on Fandango at Home

Premiered Mar 05

Buy Now

Fandango at Home

Prime Video

Rent Mirrormask on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

Critics Consensus

While visually dazzling, there isn't enough story to hang all the fancy effects on.

Read Critics Reviews

CKB

Mirrormask is worth watching as a celebration of visual creativity in film for its own sake. On a budget of only $4 million, the filmmakers came up with an amazing array of effects on the cheap that beautifully blend live actors with CGI magic. But the storyline is cold and strange, leaving you feeling oddly cheated by the end. Designer/director Dave McKean and writer Neil Gaiman, working with The Henson Company, first considered making a prequel to Dark Crystal or a sequel for Labyrinth, but decided to do something new that was somehow "Jim Hensonish". They cooked up a coming-of-age fantasy about a girl named Helena working out her mother-daughter conflict, which went very much outside the experience of these two men, and it shows. Helena is a compulsive drawer, and her long dream sequence fittingly takes place inside the graphic world she has created. Unfortunately, the filmmakers used artwork by McKean, whose dark, gritty style works far better for Batman graphic novels than for representing the fantasies of an adolescent girl. Thus the extended dream sequence is threatening and creepy in a too-masculine manner. Whereas the girl in Labyrinth clearly wins over a batch of potentially threatening beings with her nice yin approach, the critters helping Helena always seem capable of turning on her the next moment. And there are ever-present cat-thingies with disgusting men's faces -- what girl would ever imagine cats this way? The relationships between people are distant and disconnected, and the mother-daughter exchanges would fit a Dickens novel better than a 21st-century screenplay (at one point the hospitalized mom actually recites the "girl with a curl" nursery rhyme to her distraught daughter). The ending seems very un-right: after Helena's nightmare, she learns her mother is cured and her dreamer dad says everything will be all right, at which a narrator proclaims "And it was!" But this 'all right' means Helena stays with her goofy parents' dumb little circus, and a cute young guy straight out of her dream shows up to join it; in other words, sheer fairy tale stuff. Looks like this girl is never going to grow up -- so much for becoming an independent adult.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

09/18/23

Full Review

Fee fie F

Absolutely beautiful movie. Most reviews I have seen from this movie are critisizing its bad cgi, but I think that's unfair. Would you enjoy it more if the sphynx had raytracing? Or if the floating giants were full of subsurface scattering? Nah, I don't think so. CG doesn't have to be good to be entertaining or beatiful, it just has to fit, and I think the CG in mirrormask does that exact thing perfectly. For example, the CG in Tron was never meant to be realistic, yet it's still captivating. Why? Because it fits. While the plot drags every once in awhile, I feel that the beautiful visuals makeup for it.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

08/06/23

Full Review

Nawt W

For being the supposed spiritual descendant of Labyrinth, this movie strangely tries to overcomplicate a coming-of-age story by wrapping it around absolutely frivolous psychological concepts that barely complement the movie's oddball storytelling style. Which is such a weird choice. Why not keep the story simple but visually stylized? Why does this story need egos, shadows, and a bucket of half-assed projections that never amount to anything because every five minutes the plot moves onto another subplot and an outlandish location they made up on a computer? The actors do a good job, though, and the soundtrack is intrusive and memorable and fits the visuals admirably. But nothing in this movie will stick with me because its art style makes the whole thing seem like a blurry slush in the end.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/13/23

Full Review

Josh C

I will gladly recommend this movie to anyone who asks. I fell in love with this masterpiece when I was young and the feelings have never faded.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/18/23

Full Review

jacob b

With creative visuals that really capture the experience of being in a dreamlike world, committed performances from leads who do a good job acting alongside creatures that aren't actually there and even a few funny moments, MirrorMask's story might not be for everyone (it isn't convoluted but the surreal vibes mean that it's not a 100% straightforward narrative either) but this Dave McKean/Neil Gaiman collaboration is an underrated, and refreshingly different, fantasy adventure from an era where theg were in their prime (it did come out in the midst of Harry Potter's reign after all).

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

vekine b

Classic masterpiece.... a work of art

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Read all reviews

Post a rating

Dave McKean

Director

Jason Barry

Valentine

Rob Brydon

Helena's Father

Stephanie Leonidas

Helena

Gina McKee

Joanne

Dora Bryan

Nan

Show Less Cast & Crew

Show More Cast & Crew

5%

30%

The Last Airbender

TRAILER

for The Last Airbender

29%

48%

Alice Through the Looking Glass

TRAILER

for Alice Through the Looking Glass

84%

78%

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

45%

59%

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

39%

95%

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

TRAILER

for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Discover more movies and TV shows.

View More

Pseudo-Celeb "Hellboy 2" Set Reports Posted

RT-UK Exclusive: Send Us Your Questions for Neil Gaiman

Pic Explosion! "Underdog," "Stardust" and "Postal," Oh My

View more photos

Empire Magazine

Rated: 3/5

Apr 1, 2006

Full Review

Peter Howell

Toronto Star

Could be Exhibit A for anyone arguing the case that modern filmmaking lacks a strong sense of story.

Rated: 1.5/4

Oct 28, 2005

Full Review

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.

Rated: 2.5/4

Oct 28, 2005

Full Review

David Nusair

Reel Film Reviews

Mirrormask eventually establishes itself as an thoroughly interminable piece of work that substitutes endless creativity for context and character development...

Rated: 1/4

Feb 1, 2012

Full Review

Charles Cassady

Common Sense Media

Dense, dreamlike fantasy isn't for every kid.

Rated: 3/5

Dec 15, 2010

Full Review

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

An alluring original piece of fantasy...

Apr 29, 2009

Full Review

Read all reviews

Synopsis

A 15-year-old (Stephanie Leonidas) journeys through a parallel reality to recover a powerful charm that will revive a queen.

Director: Dave McKean
Producer: Martin G. Baker, Lisa Henson, Michael Polis
Screenwriter: Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean
Distributor: Columbia Tristar
Production Co: Jim Henson Productions
Rating: PG (Some Mild Thematic Elements|Scary Images)
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 30, 2005, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Apr 16, 2012
Box Office (Gross USA): $865.0K
Runtime: 1h 36m

Most Popular at Home Now