MirrorMask (2005)

This 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.

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.

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.

Episodic, detached, and lacking in drive, but packed with amazing, hallucinatory dream-imagery that makes real dreams look flat by comparison.

The movie combines drawings, photos, hazy filters, superimpositions and computer effects into a pastiche both beautiful and disturbing.