Mimic Movie Review – Funny, Funny Shoes

Runtime: 105 minutes

Release Date: August 22, 1997

Rating: R

Director: Guillermo del Torro

A massive bug infestation led to a group of scientists and experts creating a super hybrid that mimicked a cockroach. Dr. Susan Tyler was one of the team that created the Judas bug. This new bug eliminated the cockroaches that were spreading a virus through the city and making kids sick. They made the bug in such a way that all the insects were females and would die within a few months after being released. Since this is kind of a horror movie, you know that didn't really happen.

Years later, there is a brutal murder in the city. The only witness is a young autistic boy who keeps talking about the funny shoes the man wore. Josh, a researcher working for the CDC, finds some excrement at the crime scene that looks like nothing they ever saw before. Susan is working in her office when two young boys come in with some bugs they want to sell. They also show her the remains of another bug that suspiciously looks like the Judas.

Susan and her husband/fellow researcher Peter get the kids to take them back to where they found the bug. A police officer stops them from going any further, but it does set up the introduction between Susan and Chuy, the young boy from before. To save you some time and keep my plot outline from taking over the review, let's just sum this up. Susan discovers that the Judas bug continued mimicking to survive to the point where it now can mimic the look of a human and has plans to do whatever it takes to keep surviving.

Have you ever had a movie that you remembered fondly and then saw it years later and discovered that it wasn't quite as good as your memories? That's the way I feel about Mimic. I remember seeing it with my older brother in the theater, owning a copy on video, and then later buying a copy on DVD. As my copy mysteriously went missing and Netflix was about to delete the film, I decided to go ahead and watch it.

Mimic is really a dark movie and has some good moments, but it didn't live up the hype in my head. I can't even guess how many people I recommended the movie to over the years, and I wonder how many watched it and wondered what I was smoking. It's not that it's a bad movie, but it's not really a great movie either. I think if it came out today, it would be one of those movies that made its budget back and then just kind of disappeared.

When I say it's dark, I don't just mean the subject matter either. It's literally a dark movie, so dark that I had a hard time seeing what was going on in certain scenes on a high definition television. And come on, who really buys Mira Sorvino as a research scientist? I've seen her in a lot of movies and actually really like her, but the odds of her spending all day working with bugs are about the same as me winning the Powerball. Just so you know, I did not in fact win the Powerball.

As much as I loved Mimic in the past, I just don't think it stands up as well today as it did in the past.