Mira Sorvino Movie:

				Salesrank: 274440
		Used Price: $19.21
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
An ultracreepy blend of horror and fantasy (think of it as Beauty and the Bugs) from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro (Cronos) about giant cockroaches in the subway tunnels beneath Manhattan. Like its DNA-altered spawn (the title refers to the way some insects evolve to resemble their predators), Mimic is not your everyday bug picture, but a more poetic (though quite gruesome) sort of film, literally crawling with bizarre, striking images. In this case, the mutant bugs are not the result of evil atomic experiments (as in Them!), but are the unexpected side effect of work done by an entomologist (Mira Sorvino) and her Center for Disease Control officer husband (Jeremy Northam), who, in a last-ditch effort to control a roach-carried disease epidemic that was killing children, released a genetically altered form of sterile cockroaches beneath the city. They stopped the virus, but... Also starring Charles Dutton, Giancarlo Giannini, F. Murray Abraham, and Josh Brolin. --Jim Emerson

Mimic [Region 2] Reviews:
Never again will you cheer for cockroaches
2009-10-26 - When Mira Sorvino and some other irresponsible scientists get together to mutate/mate a cockroach with a praying mantis, they create a Judas cockroach, and the results are bloodthirsty, eight-foot tall beasts that can make themselves look like tall, gray men in trench-coats, or every other drunk flasher typically found in the New York subway. Somehow the Judas evolves to mimic its predator (i.e. humans), which is natural considering there isn't a person alive who doesn't enjoy stomping bugs (Would you like to know more?).

To be quite honest, this movie is not all that interesting, scary, or appealing. If there is going to be a movie about massive bugs or animals, I'd rather it be a cheesier, B-level version like Mosquito, Frogs, or Slugs.

The production values are there and the musical score is actually quite impressive, at times it's even foreboding. The pacing and lighting are excellent as well. In fact, the fear created in this movie is done solely through claustrophobia and the dark, because it sure doesn't come from elsewhere. It's just that the idea of giant, genetically altered cockroaches is so ridiculous, and Sorvino's acting is so unconvincing, that the entire movie needs an economy sized gallon of Raid from Sam's Club. The emotional investment is completely lacking, and I found myself actually rooting for the cockroaches. F. Murray Abraham and Josh Brolin no doubt want to exterminate this from their IMDB page. Charles S. Dutton, on the other hand, should proudly put this on his resume, because he murders every scene.

Unless you want to subject yourself to a bad Alien rip-off with a predictably moronic ending and a heavy handed "don't play God" message mixed with some garbage, pseudo-science about pheromones, I suggest you skip this and watch a better "people battle giant cockroaches" movie in Starship Troopers.

not good to me
2009-08-18 - This is where Hollywood movies started to go wrong. Mimic stinks.

Dramatic music for every action scene intended to make the film seem more important than it really is, a bad storyline that tries to succeed by covering it up with special effects, and poor acting all around.

The only part I liked was the predictable segment where the one woman was examining a baby roach (that was actually huge) and it jumped up and pinched her hand. Other scenes throughout the film just felt really exaggerated.

It's not a scary movie, it's not gripping, and it's not particularly good either. It features a slow build-up type of suspense that misses the mark more than anything else. Perhaps a less exaggerated storyline could have saved it, but I have a feeling it *still* would have been boring because of the slow pacing in the beginning and the overly dramatic soundtrack. A perfect case of Hollywood special effect abuse.



It's not a mammal
2008-11-13 - 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."

It has some suspenseful moments. It's worth watching once.
2008-11-03 - It has some suspenseful moments. It's worth watching once. However, there are a lot of familiar scenes I've already seen in other movies. It's worth watching once.

great movie!
2008-07-07 - i absolutly LOVE this movie! the reason (s) that i like it so much are the following:
-its acctually scary
-great special affects
-great acting
-OK plot (though, its got lots of plot holes...........but who cares!)
i apsolutly reccomend this movie for tose who enjoyed such movies as:
-arachnophobia (spelling?)
-arachnid
-and other creepy crawly movies