Seen on 4 September 1997 with Andrea for $8.75 at the East 86th Street Theatre
*Mimic*, for me, is a case of really wanting to like a movie and really looking forward to it and eventually realizing how idiotic that sort of optimism can be.
I was given ample warning way back when I saw Batman & Robin, when a young man, clipboard in hand, outside the theatre was giving away preview screening passes for Mimic. You had to be 17-34 years old to enter. By the time I called the RSVP number, they only wanted 17-24 years. So, I was washed up at 33...
*Mimic* starts off very strong; the opening credits were marvellous. An entomologist's dream and a creepy sequence for the rest of us, with sharp crisp images and slightly blurry, inky American Typewriter font. The mood continued with dark set design and evocative sets that showed New York City in crisis; children were falling prey to Strickler's Disease, which brings Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) to NYC.
To kill the Strickler's Disease, which is borne by cockroaches, Susan and Peter (Jeremy Northam) genetically engineer a new insect, the "Judas breed." It is supposed to kill the cockroaches that kill the children, and then die out within a generation. Unf ortunately, that does not happen, and three years later, some perplexing, frightening evidence shows up that points to the Judas breed's survival.
Up to this point, the movie is sufficiently creepy, and engaging. The CDC workers are being shadowed by a dark figure who is able to hang upside-down from ceilings, jump off buildings, etc. But there is some mysterious moviemaking law that states that hal fway through a decent creature feature all sense and writing goes out the window and it turns into a Die Hard film.
Once the CDC investigators (including Josh Brolin) actually get close to their prey, the whole film converts itself from smart thriller to splatter fest. Some people are killed instantly, some are "saved for later"--that is one of many facets that make no sense. A lot of the peripheral characters who could be interesting get lost in the shuffle--F. Murray Abraham as a fellow entomologist, Giancarlo Giannini as the immigrant shoeshiner, Alexander Goodwin as the strange "special" Chuy (Retarded? Autistic? We never quite find out what his problem is). Charles Dutton is completely wasted as Leonard, the ornery subway cop, who, by the way, should have a police radio on him, but doesn't. That alone is a major gaffe. They spend a good part of the film "seven sto ries underground" but there is ample sunlight. I could go on, but why bother?
In the end, what happens in Mimic makes little or no sense, the audience seemed to agree with my unspoken "enough already." Perhaps even 17-year-olds are not so easily fooled.
Pet Peeve: A lot of kids are harmed here, in a gratuitous way. Very unappealing.
--------------------------
Copyright (c) 1997, Seth J. Bookey, New York, NY 10021, sethbook@panix.com.
More movie reviews by Seth Bookey, with graphics, can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2679/kino.html
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