Mimic (1997)

Hitchcock directed a film in the 30's where he set up a young boy in a bus with a bomb. The sequence was taunt, nerve-wracking and spellbinding. But Hitch committed the mortal sin; He blew up the bus and killed the boy. The film flopped and he learned a valuable lesson. You can't kill children in a film. Apparently, no one related this maxim to the director and scripter of "Mimic." Or if they did, they did so too late. For the film kills two children right in the middle of it's plot. It's crass and vulgar and totally unnecessary.

Imagine, if you will, that David Fincher ("seven") directed "The Attack of the Giant Cockroaches." That's "Mimic." The film is visually stunning and quite engrossing to watch. Director Guillermo del Torro has a unique sense of visual style. His opening overheard shots of a large city during a snowfall is beautiful. Likewise, his film has the "gritty underbelly of a metropolis" look perfected by Tim Burton. It's quite stunning. del Toro even copies Fincher's nervous, edited-with-a-butcher-knife opening credits style that made "seven" so riveting. Likewise, with "Mimic," this device sets the tone for the film which is to come.

Del Torro also knows how to pick actors. Mira Sorvino is quite watchable and even believable as an entomologist who saves several thousand children from a disease. An opening scene of her walking through a large hospital with row after row of tented beds is delicious. del Torro sure knows how to film her. He also gets a great performance out of Charles S. Dutton. The large actor seemingly re-invents himself on screen here.

Also in the film are Josh Brolin and F. Murray Abraham. What's great about the latter's small role is that his pock- marked face, perfectly lit to accentuate this feature, makes him look like a giant cockroach. del Torro teases us into thinking he might turn out to be a bad guy simply by showing the pit-faced facade of the man. It's another aspect of his unique visual style.

What del Torro does not have here is a script. The story here is pretty lame. It has very little substance. It's like a short film expanded by endless scenes of humans being hunted by giant bugs. And of course, it is filled with young boys in danger. This is unacceptable. It's a lame scriptwriter's device to make you care about what happens. The script, which was written by del Torro with 5 other scripters, is so poor here that it needs this kind of disgusting help throughout it's course. Worse yet is the "happy" ending to the film which seems tacked on and is totally unbelievable. Not only do we have to believe that Sorvino stumbles onto the "thing" which will stop the giant bugs from reproducing and then promptly kills it, we also have to believe that her love interest survives a neutron- bomb-like explosion. Yeah, right.

"Mimic" starts great. It has del Torro's beautiful shots of the city. It has a "seven"-like opening credits that sets us up for the visually breathtaking film we are about to see. It has del Torro's Warholian duplication of images that immediately draw us into the ocular landscape. And then it degenerates into a cockroach infested slug-fest that kills children and forces us to believe the impossible.

The Scene that Remains

Dutton stepping on a giant pus filled insect, splattering it's goo everywhere.

Note: John Sayles and Stephen Soderbergh did uncredited work on the script. Matthew Greenberg and Matthew Robbins are credited.

Report Card

Script: F

Acting: A

Cinematography\Lighting: A

Special Effects\Make Up: A+

Music: D

Final Grade: C-