Mimic (Widescreen)

The movie itself isn't all that good, but if you are a big Guillermo Del Toro fan as I am this is a big one as it was his first big Hollywood movie (second feature overall), and what he learned dealing with the studio, pushing his visual technique further because of it, came out the other side a better director. As far as creature features go it's okay, but as I've come to expect with Del Toro the commentary is very good, also quite funny, gives you an idea of what he was dealing with behind the scenes, the director's cut of the film removes a lot of the bad second unit stuff that Del Toro hated the most.

In 1997, Guillermo del Toro was not a rising legend in the movie business -- in fact, he was a relative newbie.

So obviously the sci-horror flick "Mimic" was an attempt to forge roads in the rough world of Hollywood. It's a flawed gem among horror movies -- it builds up a sense of slow, shadowy horror based on what could happen if humans play God, loaded with symbolism and eerie clicking noises. But it also has an insane climax, and Del Toro's direction often gets buried under the scares.

In the near future, children are ravaged by a cockroach-carried disease. Dr. Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) creates a solution -- a sterile mantis/termite crossbreed that will destroy the cockroaches, then die.

A few years later, Susan buys bugs from some street kids -- and finds a Judas larva among them (which promptly vanishes). Then the kids go missing... as do the subway dwellers. When an enormous dead insect is found washed into the water treatment plant, Susan knows for sure that the Judas bug has not only survived and reproduced -- but it's evolving at a ghastly rate.

Meanwhile, her hubby Peter Mann (Jeremy Northam), subway cop Leonard (Charles Dutton) and an immigrant (Giancarlo Giannini) looking for his autistic son all venture down into the deserted subways. But Susan has run afoul of the Judas insects -- and as all the humans huddle in an abandoned subway car, she finds that the insects have evolved even further than she thought.

The filming of "Mimic" was apparently a pretty bad one -- Bob Weinstein and Del Toro apparently argued a lot, and Del Toro later compared the final film to a pretty girl with her arms chopped off. Sadly, a lot of Del Toro's unique style was stripped from it, since the creep factor (an autistic boy wanders through a ruined chapel) and religious symbolism get smothered in lots of "boo!" bug scares.

But he does give "Mimic" a lot of atmosphere -- it's cloaked in a bleak, grimy, rainy atmosphere, full of decayed old subways and tangles of rusty pipes. While the science is sketchy at best, Del Toro manages to give the vaguely humanoid bugs a special quality of horror -- though the idea of insects mimicking a coated, hat-wearing man sounds silly, their crusty eyeless "faces" are pretty ghastly.

The first half of the movie is something of a bio-mystery, slowly building the suspense about where these bugs are, and how much they've evolved. Then the story explodes into a "Night of the Living Dead"-style horror flick, with the fearful humans trapped in a small space with bugs about to smash inside, and picking them off if they venture out.

The biggest problem? The ending. Both Susan and Peter face off against the bugs in a literally explosive finale -- the events of which stretch credibility until it snaps and zings you in the face. Really quite bad.

Sorvino and Northam are a bit stiff at first, but both blossom when one of the bugs carries her off into the tunnels -- after that their performances are full of barely-restrained hysteria. Charles S. Dutton is the scene-stealer here as a blues-singing, sharp-tongued cop who finds himself in over his head, and ends up being the most heroic of them all.

Buried under the surface of "Mimic" is a brilliant horror film, but the plot is dragged down by a hokey ending and mutilated direction. Maybe we'll get lucky and have a "director's cut."

As a subject, the portray of an underground world below major cities has always been appealing. Combine that idea with some giant killer bugs and you get "Mimic", Guillermo Del Toro's sci-fi extravaganza. This film makes an interesting approach on the nature of predators and the mystery of the dark corners of human civilization. Unfortunately, it doesn't live up to satisfying the hard critical eye.

The movie tells a story about an army of genetically-altered insects created to destroy a plague of cockroaches in the sewers of New York. Three years later, the bugs have learned to survive by mimicking their worst enemies: humans. Now an entire colony of these creatures is growing under the Big Apple, and they're getting ready to move up.

As you can see, the idea for the plot is very good, and has an interesting edge to it, but in the end, the filmmakers decided to exploit it through simple action sequences, with a lot of "Aliens" on the back of their minds. Mira Sorvino is very good as the doctor who created the monsters and is now tortured by the idea of her creation being loose on the world. But her character is the only one with at least some depth in this whole story. All the others are just background people, who play basically three roles: "partners" for our main hero, "victims" that need to be rescued (children are perfect for this), and "meat", so we can witness the destructive power of the giant bugs.

The real problem with "Mimic" is that, even though it has a very original idea, the script suddenly decides to play it safe, since it gives you absolutely no surprises. By the end, you know exactly what's going to happen, basically the same thing that happens in "Aliens": you know that the good guys will find their way through the colony, find the source of all the creatures, and blow it up with the biggest explosion their budget can allow. Fortunately for us, at least it's a big budget (the design for the creatures is award-worthy).

The DVD itself is no good, unfortunately. It includes the theatrical trailer, but absolutely no bios or commentaries. Lack of features is a curse among DVD's, and I'll never get tired of saying it.

In conclusion, I recommend the movie because of its original idea and some cool special effects, but you're warned in advance that you won't find anything new once the story gets going. How they managed to pull off a sequel is still a mystery to me.