I know you've seen plenty of rave reviews for MirrorMask. I know I have. But honestly, most of those reviews ran off of me like water off of a duck's back, because they were from people I would have expected to like MirrorMask. Some people are gaga over almost every British import; I can't stand most of the stuff. Some people are gaga over everything that Neil Gaiman has done; I think his stuff is terribly uneven, but I thought a couple of the things he did were good. Some people see "Jim Henson Creature Shop" in the credits and swoon, conjuring up magical wonderful memories of one of their favorite movies, The Dark Crystal -- which I thought was ugly, slow, poorly made, imitative, shallow, and mind-numbingly dull, one of the worst movies of all time. So if you loved The Dark Crystal and you're telling me to go see MirrorMask, my inclination is avoid it. But I liked the art on the (Flash-heavy) promotional web page for it, and I liked one of the ideas that was mentioned in almost every review of it. So while I wasn't going to go out of my way to see it, when a couple of friends of mine invited me to come along with them and see it, I said, "Sure."MirrorMask is amazing. One of the best movies I've seen in years. Yes, even better than Serenity. Here in St. Louis, you only have two evenings left to see it in the theater, because after Thursday night, it's gone. I doubt it'll last any longer in other cities, so whatever you were planning on doing instead tonight or tomorrow, if you haven't seen MirrorMask yet, move it up the priority queue. No, you don't want to wait and see it on DVD, any more than you want to see Sin City on DVD for the first time if you have any choice. This movie absolutely demands the big screen.
The line, by the way, in the reviews that made me half curious to see it was that this was a movie composed almost entirely of fairy-tale motifs, but with a plot that is unlike any known fairy tale. And you know what? It's true. A kingdom of light and a kingdom of dark, a quest, sphinxes and riddles, a princess locked away in a tower, a juggler and fool for a hero, a magical key that nobody can find the lock that matches, oh yeah, we've seen many of these pieces before. And out of all these deeply resonant images and situations, Gaiman has made something new, original, striking, powerfully psychedelic, and deeply moving.
I don't want to spoil the movie. There is a major plot twist that I saw coming about a third of the way through, and enjoyed watching unfold, and I don't want to spoil it for you. But if what I've said above doesn't catch your attention, let me ask you if you would go see What Dreams May Come if a G-rated version of the late Vaughn Bodé had done the art direction and Jane Yolen or Terry Windling had story-edited it?
- Mood:
impressed
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bradhicks- J. Brad Hicks
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I felt it was so so.
The characters were predicatable,even for Gaiman. Main character as an unwilling hero that must quest for some object that will make everything better. Don't forget the mildly amusing sidekick with the untrustworthy outer shell and a heart of gold.
the animation was pretty and amusing, but seemed to try too hard to be "weird" in the Gaiman mold. I love Henson more then most, but I've never, ever, been impressed with anything they've done in CGI. They just can't seem to find the right people with the knack for it.
And as far as Dark Crystal and The Neverending Story went, I think they were both brilliant for various reasons. Dark Crystal was technical genius along with some fantastic performances from puppetters in an unusual setting. The Neverending Story was also brilliant for the puppet/live action mixing and creative characters. Hell, how many kids wanted a Luck Dragon to fly on? I know I did. That's not to say that the sequels to Neverending Story didn't suck.. hard. But the first one was really magical to me when I saw it for the first time.
If that makes my opinion suspect, so be it. But I will state that I'm really a big fan of puppet and animation, so I do have a fair body of experiance to draw from for my opinions.
I would see it again if time permitted.
I loved the Dark Crystal, and I was annoyed by The Neverending Story, but that's because I read the book and I felt that the movie fell short. I adore Labryinth.
Here's my one nit to pick with Mirrormask: You mentioned the Creature Shop. Check again, there IS NO creature shop anymore. Muppets will be entirely CGI from now on. No muppets were used in the making of this movie, which might be part of why you actually liked it...
For this movie, it was ok. The world they created worked well as a CGI creation, however clunky.
But I shiver to think of more muppet movies without any actual... muppets.
I love puppets, particularly well-made ones.
I refer you to my recent viewing of The Empire Strikes Back: When the scene where Yoda appears came on, I got a special thrill in my heart. "OMG, look! It's the REAL Yoda!!!"
(Headdesk.) No, dummy. That's a puppet. :)
The creature shop is alive and kicking.
http://www.creatureshop.com
Henson and Co. did not sell off the creature shop. You may be thinking about the closing of the London location of the Creature Shop (the New York and Los Angeles locations are still open). They did make what I hear was a fairly difficult decision to sell off the rights for the Muppets and Bear in the Big blue house(but not Sesame Street, they were left by Jim to the Children's Television Workship in perpituity) to Disney in exchange for something that Henson productions sorely needed... long term viability. That German company did practically nothing with them and basically left them to rot for many years cutting their company value by nearly 5 fold. Brian and Lisa finally managed to rally the money and investors to get the financially hurting company out of that German company's hands and were faced with a difficult task of making it viable again. The only real way was to sell off some of their most valuable properties, which included the Muppets. They did however secure a 4 year consulting agreement with Disney to make sure they had a hand in shaping the future of the Muppets with Disney.
It's sad, but good for Muppet fans provided Disney can do them justice.
Henson did retain the rights to The Dark Crystal and Labrynth.
Evidence the new Muppet Wizard of Oz movie and various new apperances.
Do I remember the generics themselves? No. All that generic fantasy stuff blurs together in my head. This movie, on the other hand, takes so many classic fairy tale tropes and then twists them in its own unique ways that they'll probably stick with me for a lifetime.
I wanted to like it.
And I might have, if only I could have UNDERSTOOD THE FREAKING DIALOGUE!
The sound mixing for this movie was such that ends of lines, important words, and sometimes entire lines of dialogue were completely unintelligible. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyhow), I had extreme difficulty making any sense of it, because I was lost almost from the get-go. I left the theatre feeling frustrated, angry, and cheated.
Just as a point of reference for those of you to whom this will be meaningful, I LOVED Neil Gaiman's NeverWhere. But then, I could make out the dialogue in NeverWhere. On a third-generation copy. So it's not the accents, and it's not the surreal environment.
No, what really bothers me is the sense I get that everyone else got to experience something really cool that I wasn't allowed to. And that makes me unspeakably angry.
Well. That IS your particular Large Red Shiny Hot Button, in'it?
I did not find the diologue difficult to understand in the least. I bet you would have had a better time of it if you'd seen it sooner, we all know that film degrades after a while.
I strongly recommend seeing it as soon as it comes out on DVD with the subtitles on. That may help.
I have a chronic, life-long problem: I can't filter sounds. I have above-average hearing in all frequencies that have been tested. But put me in a noisy environment, an environment with two or more sources of sound, and I really have to struggle to concentrate on one of them. Hearing one human voice at a time in a party full of people all talking at once is my nightmare scenario, because while it ought to be fun, and while everybody else is so obviously having fun, I might as well be deaf, or they might as well be speaking some incomprehensible other language, because I can't make out a word that's being said, no matter how important it is to me.
So it seems unutterably weird to me that you couldn't make out what they were saying and I could. I have no explanation for this at all.
In fact, I did miss a few lines, especially in the GiantsOrbiting scene.
Are you sure you don't want to add "Bah Humbug" somewhere?
I like and have always liked Henson's stuff, even in ensuing generations. I adore Brian Froud. Neil Gaiman is a sexy bitch, being all darkly creative, intelligent and british to boot. No one's perfect, but at least when you reference "The Dark Crystal" and "Labyrinth" people generally know what you're talking about, outside of our geekdom group. How many of us may claim the same?