Mimic (1997)
A movie review by Michael J. Legeros
Copyright 1997 by Michael J. Legeros
(Dimension)
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
Written by John Sayles, Steven Soderbergh, Matthew Robbins
Cast Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Charles Dutton, Giancarlo
Giannini, F. Murray Abraham, Josh Brolin, Alexander
Goodwin
MPAA Rating "R" (presumably for violence and gore)
Running Time 105 minutes
Reviewed at The Wynnsong, Durham, NC (23AUG97)
==
Yet another sucky sci-fi spook-fest, this one stars Mira Sorvino, bless her heart, as a Big Apple entomologist who creates a hybrid insect to combat a cockroach-borne epidemic-in-the-making. Her supposedly sterile solution works wonders until, three years later, the bugs return, having mutated into human-sized, human-mimicking monsters. For the first hour, while we wait for a good glimpse of the creatures, the various characters (Sorvino's, her character's husband, her character's husband's partner, a couple of kids, a shoe shine man, the shoe shine man's autistic son, and a feisty transit worker) poke around the city's subway tunnels, unafraid of any dark, damp, obviously creature-infested corners. (Don't these people watch horror movies?) When the bugs finally *do* appear, believability gets zapped-- rewiring decades-old subway circuitry on the fly?-- but we finally get some action and a little blood and an adorably grimy Sorvino, whose deadpan reaction to the appearance of a particular creature may be the single best howler of the summer: "Ohmigod, it's the male." Stylishly directed by Guillermo Del Toro (CRONOS).
Grade: C-
-- Mike Legeros - Movie Hell http://www.nonvirtual.com/hell/
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