Stupid Movie Review: Mimic

Director: Guillermo Del Toro


People in the movie: Mira Sorvino (Paulie from Goodfellas' daughter), Charles S. Dutton, F. Murray Abraham, a British guy, an autistic kid, the European guy who got disemboweled in Hannibal, Josh Brolin for like 4 seconds.

Plot: Mira Sorvino plays an insect expert (totally believable role for her. I absolutely believe that she would play with bugs as a career. I really do.) who is given the task of trying to wipe out NYC's cockroach problem. Apparently, the cockroaches are carrying this horrible disease that kills children and half the city's kids have already been wiped out. So she figures out a way to biologically engineer a species of cockroach or cockroach DNA (the science is real hazy here and personally I think the whole idea is retarded anyway but whatever) that will wipe out the vermin and save the city. Good for her. She introduces this thing she creates into the sewers and every one's happy. Fast forward a few years later and we suddenly see a Korean priest running for his life from what appears to be a super strong monster of some kind. You just catch a glimpse of the thing, which looks vaguely human, for a few seconds after the priest falls to his death. We move over to Mira's lab somewhere in the city where these two street rat kids bring her a bug in a box that they want her to pay them for. I wasn't aware there was a market for this shit but ok. We see Mira has this whole lab full of bug stuff, including an ant colony in a huge tank. As she explains bug life to one of the street rat kids, I couldn't help but think Mira can't even fake that she knows what shes talking about. Anyway, she examines what the kids bring her and she realizes that she's looking at a semi-large cockroach that bites super hard. She immediately suspects that this is her little DNA fix from a few years ago mutated. Now I don't believe Mira Sorvino can be a scientist, but I do believe she can fuck up chocolate milk, so this part is totally believable. She begins telling her friends, husband, and colleagues about this, and now people are starting to turn up dead. We are brought to another part of the city where a shoe shiner in the subway and his obviously autistic son stumble upon the creature. I won't explain how this happens because that would take a long time and I'm not writing this for a Special Education course. At any rate, the kid is taken by the creature which everyone watching figures out is really a giant cockroach that has super sharp claws and can fly. We are fucked. So now Mira and crew go and check out the sewers and underground areas of the city, and the shit really hits the fan. Apparently the bugs can mimic human behavior and even have human faces for camouflage. What the fuck. So with the help of Charles S. Dutton, who gets to say "motherfucker" a lot, the crew (those who survive anyway) try and escape the sewers and wipe out the bug menace once and for all. Also Mira Sorvino can't act.


Gore: We have some decent creature violence but this is mostly just bug goo everywhere. Nothing to write home about.


Nudy scenes: No. Mira wastes the few assets she does have in a weak bathtub scene with her weakling husband. We have no nudity. In a bathtub scene. Waste of my time.


Who was the asshole: That cast Mira Sorvino as a scientist in this movie? Really? NO ONE believes she can even READ, much less read MANY BOOKS to fulfill the requirements to become a PHD.


Why: Didn't the NYPD send more cops down with Charles S. Dutton to help our crew of scientists? I would think that standard operating procedure would be to send at least ONE more cop as backup right? He was not only the only guy with a weapon, but the only guy with balls to actually do anything to get these people out of the sewers. Charles S. Dutton, gold star for you. Also, Mira Sorvino can't act.


Are you fucking kidding me? moment: I'll preface this with a brief explanation of a moment I left out of the plot synopsis. While our heroes are trapped down underground by the insect horde, Mira briefly explains (seriously she sucks at this) that in an insect colony there will have to be one fertile male to keep the colony going. I was always under the impression that there was only one fertile FEMALE and that she was the queen and all the other insects were male. But hey, I'm no expert on the insect population. Not like Mira is of course. So anyway, end of the movie, her husband has just fried the whole colony except for one insect. It obviously attacks Mira who immediately says "the male". The bug looked EXACTLY THE SAME as every other bug creature in the fucking movie. How the fuck would she possibly be able to tell that THAT particular insect is the male? Are you fucking kidding me?


Creature effect award: The scene where the giant bug creature is finally revealed in full and chases Mira down the subway.


Leap of logic moment involving the award given above: So...NOBODY sees the giant bug creature chasing a woman down a subway? I'm pretty sure that in NYC, someone would see something like that. It's kind of a big deal.


In conclusion: Guillermo Del Toro is a great director. He has been quoted as saying that he makes two kinds of movies. Movies to pay the bills and movies that are close to his heart. Clearly this is of the former variety. Not his finest hour. The script is bad and full of giant crater sized holes and...have I mentioned that Mira Sorvino, despite being somewhat foxy, is a terrible actress? She ruins whatever credibility a giant bug movie might have had by sucking out loud for 90 minutes. I remember watching this when I was younger and loving it. I think it was the giant bugs. Which are definitely cool. In fact the only thing that saves this one from Metallica post Black album levels of suck are the creatures. But giant bugs alone do not make a great film. Also...Mira Sorvino sucks.

Grade: 62%

You my dear are a huge embarassing failure. Both me and your dad think so.