(1997) Guillermo del Toro – Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Josh Brolin, Giancarlo Giannini, Charles S. Dutton
Synopsis: In some corners (allmovie, for instance), the plot of Mimic is encapsulated in some description of “shape-shifting bugs,” which I’d like to point out as being patently false. The bugs in Mimic are not shape-shifting; they mimic humans in more general (and actually more plausible, if no less unbelievable) ways.
Review: Mimic’s decent. I’m not going to waste much time reviewing it. The premise is relatively solid, as horror movies go. Particularly as horror movies “based” in science go, seeing as the science of horror movies is generally not comprehensive. Despite the fact that it ultimately degenerates into a pretty run-of-the-mill us-against-them film (‘them’ in this case being the giant bugs [hope I didn’t spoil the surprise for you]), at least Mimic makes an effort to be vaguely believable, even if only in some idealistic sense. It would have been easy for the writers (or director or whoever) to jump from “the bugs we released are evolving” to “the bugs are sentient, shape-shifting entities that have built a civilization and, in addition to performing their own limited-production plays, are hell-bent on enslaving the human race.” In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the basis for the sequels (‘Mimic 2: Hardshell’ and ‘Mimic: Sentinel’), which I have absolutely no intent of ever seeing. At any rate, Mimic is competent. I’ll let it rest at that.
Rating: [••½] out of [•••••]