Mimic (1997)

reviewed by
Phil Brady


Mira Sorvino has been busy since she won her Oscar last year, so it's excusable if she takes a small detour to pick up an easy check in movie exploiting her name. It looked like she was doing that earlier in Romy and Michele, but oops, that was a good movie. Well, here's a late summer not-so-high-budget sci-fi thriller.. this must be the throwaway movie. Mutant insects, mimicking humans and breeding beneath the city sounds sorta tired, but to my complete surprise, Mimic is actually a pretty good flick.

In the opening scenes, Manhattan is devastated by a disease which is killing large numbers of children. The city's roach population is the carrier, but they prove too hardy for normal measures. Mira plays Susan, an geneticist working with Atlanta's Center for Disease Control (CDC). She has engineered a Judas roach to do the job. It gives off a secretion that kills the civilian roaches, and it is also engineered to die without propagating. Remember how well the bio-engineered failsafe worked in Jurassic Park?

Three years after she's hailed as a hero for saving NY's kids, she is shown a live specimen that looks familiar. It's her roach, but it's large, and it's a baby at that. Susan's husband Peter (Jeremy Northam, forgettable) also works for the CDC, and together they investigate the subway station where it was found. An MTA cop with an attitude stops their snooping, but since he's played by Charles Dutton, you know he'll be an important part of the search. Eventually, several cast members end up very deep in the underground of Gotham. Ominously, the homeless who lived down there have moved on..Lots of predictable stuff ensues down there, as the insects meet the cast members that don't have a percentage of the gross.

The genre dictates a certain amount of pro forma wandering in the dark passages, close calls, and a complex master escape plan. Special effects are okay. Strangely, the producers actually spent some money on a script. The underlying science isn't too insulting, and there are a couple nice touches. The tip-off specimen is bought from a couple kids who think they are hustling Susan, but she is really just humoring them because she likes their spirit and interest. The requisite threatened child taps out mimicry of people's gaits. The story takes the time to develop a relationship with his father, who shines shoes in that subway station. Later, under siege, Susan reaches into the body of a dead roach, using `scent glands' to smear roach scent on themselves to buy time. `If they can mimic us, we can mimic them.' Such echoes are not profound, but it looks like someone made an effort.

Director Guillermo Del Toro did a fine job of opening up the underground, by staging many scenes in spacious areas. A few old subway stations are used, and one has a old train car which serves as a refuge, and maybe an escape. This means we're spared endless claustrophobic scenes with no reference point. Nobody dies from stupidity, either. That right there makes this an uncommon summer thriller. If you don't check this one out, be sure to remember Guillermo Del Toro's name. We'll be seeing more from him.


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