On 1 May 2020, I watched yet another movie in my collection of hitherto-unwatched (by me) and totally obscure/forgotten family-friendly fantasies from the 1980s/90s in VHS videocassette format. This time it was the turn of Magic in the Mirror to entertain me.
I can still recall seeing and purchasing the videocassette of this strange little oddity of a film in a charity shop in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England, more than a decade ago, having never seen nor heard of it before (and I've never seen it anywhere since either). Nor has it apparently been officially released in DVD format.
Directed by Ted Nicolaou, and first released in 1996, Magic in the Mirror stars a cast of non-famous American thespians supported by mainly Romanian-surnamed technical specialists. As its title indicates, the plot follows the tried and trusted theme of a fantasy world existing on the other side of a very large, old and ornate looking-glass.
In this particular movie, the looking-glass world is accessed accidentally by a girl named Mary-Margaret, where she is befriended by two mirror minders, whose job it is to ensure that no people ever cross into their world from ours. But having clearly failed to do so, as M-M is now here, they decide to take her to their decidedly imperious queen, Hysop, and fervently hope that in doing so she will not punish them by having them planted, i.e. turned into living humanoid plants (I told you it was strange!).
In order to travel to the queen, however, they run the risk of being confronted en route by the Drakes. These are a fearsome race of human-sized anthropomorphic talking ducks who have a major tea-drinking fetish that involves capturing this mirror world's unfortunate humans, sealing them inside giant teabags, and then steeping them in boiling water for 10 seconds to give the tea the required taste that they love (I TOLD you it was strange!!).
Needless to say, the Drakes' teabag-imprisoned victims do not survive this hideous process, but as it is after all a family film their grim fate is represented on-screen by nothing more disturbing than a couple of very muted shrieks emanating from inside the opaque teabags. However, the favourite tea taste of the Drakes' female leader, Dragora, is the one that is only obtained on that exceedingly rare occasion when a human from our world is captured, sealed inside a giant teabag, and steeped in boiling water for a full minute, which does not bode well for M-M's longterm prospects (I TOLD YOU IT WAS...okay, you get the message!).
Thanks in part, however, to our feisty little heroine's hitherto-distant, over-achieving physicist mother and her under-achieving but loving artist father (who always calls her Daisy, yet for no perceivable reason), her duck adversaries are well and truly roasted...
I'd say that this film is totally quackers, but I already said that earlier this month when reviewing here on Shuker In Movieland Howard the Duck (which truly was!). Or I could say that it is absolutely fowl, but in reality it's simply quirky (plus a sequel was released in 1997 with the actual subtitle Fowl Play). So what I shall do is sign off here by saying that if you're watching a movie whose villains look like ducks, sound like ducks, walk like ducks, and fly like ducks, it's clearly time to watch Deadpool instead...
But if you choose not to heed my words and remain curious to see more, click here to access a trailer for Magic in the Mirror – and may the fates be merciful to you!
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
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