MIMIC 1997
A film review by Timothy Voon
Copyright 1997 Timothy Voon
1 :-) for the Judas Breed
Cast: Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Charles Dutton, Giancarlo Giannini, F. Murray Abraham, Josh Brolin, Alexander Goodwin Director: Guillermo Del Toro Screenplay: John Sayles, Steven Soderbergh, Matthew Robbins
Ever thumped a fat bug with a book, and then watch it's insides splatter on the wallpaper? It's the kind of sight that generally grosses people out so I personally prefer spraying the bug to death. It's hands free, hygienic and compact. Why swat the fly when you can fry it with chemicals. This brings me to my point on the big, bad ugly bugs known as the Judas breed. Once the salvation of mankind but now it's demise. Mutated and evolved in a period of three years into horrific flying creatures breeding in the murky depths of a city sewer and feeding silently on fleshy prey. So if you're a fly swatter and not a bug sprayer - this movie is for you. Imagine the juicy remains on wall or book. Imagine a lot of it. Then imagine wiping the bug insides over yourself over and over again. In "Mimic" the key to survival is the perfume of bug slime, and the aroma of death is none other than human blood.
Now imaging a spider in a feeding frenzy, or a preying mantis cleverly dissecting its prey with razor sharp jaws. Now magnify this picture by a hundred times and watch this enormous bug rip apart several children, several cops, several homeless people, somebody's father and a homeless Reverend. My query - was it really necessary to slaughter the boys - it rather defeats the purpose of an innocent bug hunt. AND is it ethical to murder a father in front of his son's eyes? It isn't everyday that we are made to see a child watch his father pierced with scissor-like fangs and have his blood splatter over him. It's a rather sloppy and insensitive scene if you ask me. The father reaches out for his child and before you know it - splat - lots of holes through the torso and blood foaming at the mouth. How does a child respond to this?
So despite this movie's wanton thirst for blood, bug poop and fascination with bug insides, it does create a confused and fascinating story about the web of life. This time we are the prey and the insect are the predator. It gives as a different perspective on life when the giants are insects, and it's their turn to wreak revenge on humans who wouldn't give two hoots to another bug gone under the boot. The heroine (Mira Sorvino) does a good job faking terror, as she is privileged enough to face the male drone in hand to hand combat and win - politically correct. As for the our Hero (Jeremy Northam), who was the dashing Mr Knightley in Emma, is present dashing about this movie blowing up the female bugs which is not so politically correct. Also our Hero and Heroine are trying to reproduce and are having great difficulty conceiving a child despite repeated attempts. The writer's solution to this problem is kill the autistic kid's father, make him an orphan, place him in the middle of the hive and somebody will just have to adopt him - I wonder who?
So I really should have hated this movie more for all the above reasons, but somehow, I didn't and I don't know why. For some unexplained reason my fascination with the big bad insect kept me interested throughout. Personally I would have liked to spray the six legged vermin from a distance, being a "Mortein" kind of a guy; but I guess on occasion I won't mind getting my hands dirty, and slapping a bug or two around for recreational purposes.
Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews