Mimic
A film review by Hanson Yoo
Copyright 1997 Hanson Yoo
Frankly, I can't say that I saw all of Mimic firsthand. About the point Charles Dutton's character guides two chaps from the CDC through some closed off subway tunnels and utters, "How long does this go on?" I thought to myself, "How long indeed?" and left the theater.
My friends who stayed for the credits tell me the ending was nothing original nor interesting, which is exactly what I thought of the first half. Although I didn't actually see the entire film, I didn't see the point in sitting through another 50 minutes of chase scenes in dark tunnels when I've seen it all before. Mimic is as rote a film as you can get – it's the kind of film that goes straight to video starring William Katt and Tanya Roberts or Andrew Stevens and Shannon Tweed with lots of nudity. Instead, we get Mira Sorvino and Jeremy Northam, but without the attendant nude scenes. So there's basically nothing interesting to watch.
The threadbare plot – a scientist tries to play God and unleashes a predatory species of giant cockroach. People die, there's a cat and mouse chase, and an explosion at the end. Talk about the dregs of the summer movies.
Beyond the dialog and clumsy set-up, Mimic is one of those films that is so unsuccessful in its execution that you notice little things to pick apart like the editing, which is the worst I've seen since Crocodile Dundee II. But instead of lingering on nothing for two seconds (in Crocodile Dundee II, the characters would leave the scenes and the camera would stay fixed on a hallway for no reason), the scenes are edited so harshly that the last words of their dialog are practically cut-off (which in retrospect may have been a good thing). I was also uncomfortable with the filmmakers resorting to both children being killed on-screen by the bugs and the child in peril plotline. Considering the film starts out with an epidemic killing off children in Manhattan, I wonder what director and co-screenwriter Guillermo Del Toro has against youngsters.
The performances are nothing short of unremarkable. What in the world is an Academy Award winning actress like Mira Sorvino doing in crap like this (and why is she doing it so poorly)? Getting films of this low caliber green-lighted is simply an abuse of privilege, and a sure way of get bumped off the Hot List. Although Jeremy Northam pulls off a flawless American accent, the role is so stultifyingly boring that he disappears into the background. And Charles Dutton tries to add some spice to his crusty transit cop role, but between this annoyingly colorful cop role and his annoyingly colorful shoeshine attendant role in the terrible Nick Of Time, it might be suggested that Dutton turn down a role every now and then (and the volume down a notch or two).
Mimic is the kind of film that has no character development, no good dialog, and has "no-brainer" tattooed all over it. It's not offensively stupid like Batman And Robin, but it's close.
Grade for the first half: D
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