Mimic (film)

Mimic

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Produced by
Screenplay by
Story by
  • Matthew Robbins
  • Guillermo del Toro
Based on "Mimic"
by Donald A. Wollheim
Starring
Music by Marco Beltrami
Cinematography Dan Laustsen
Edited by Patrick Lussier
Production
company
Distributed by Miramax Films
Release dates
  • August 22, 1997 (1997-08-22)
Running time
 106 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $30 million[2]
Box office $25.5 million[2]

Mimic is a 1997 American science fiction horror film co-written and directed by Guillermo del Toro based on Donald A. Wollheim's short story of the same name, and starring Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Josh Brolin, Charles S. Dutton, Giancarlo Giannini, and F. Murray Abraham.

Del Toro was unhappy with the film as released, especially because he did not succeed in obtaining a final cut of the film; however, his director's cut version was finally released in 2011. Mimic, whose U.S. theatrical gross was $25.5 million,[2] was followed by two direct-to-video sequels, Mimic 2 (2001) and Mimic 3: Sentinel (2003), neither of them with del Toro involved.

It includes several examples of del Toro's most characteristic hallmarks. "I have a sort of a fetish for insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things," said del Toro,[3] and this is evident in Mimic, where at times all are combined in long, brooding shots of dark, cluttered, muddy chaotic spaces. According to Alfonso Cuarón, del Toro's friend and colleague, "with Guillermo the shots are almost mathematical — everything is planned.”[4]

Plot

In Manhattan, cockroaches are spreading the deadly "Strickler's disease" that is claiming hundreds of the city's children. Entomologist Susan Tyler uses genetic engineering to create what her colleague (and husband) Peter Mann and she call the Judas breed, a large insect that releases an enzyme which causes the roaches metabolism to speed up and starve themselves to death. It successfully kills off the disease. The released population was all-female and designed with a lifespan of only a few months, so that it would only last one generation.

Three years later, a reverend is chased and dragged underground by a strange assailant. The only witness is Chuy, the "special" ward of an immigrant subway shoe-shiner named Manny. Two kids later sell a "weird bug" from the subway to Susan, which she performs test on, and realises is part of the Judas breed. Looking for more valuable specimens, the kids go down the tracks where they find a large egg sac and are then killed. Chuy also enters the church to find "Mr. Funny Shoes" and is abducted. Peter, CDC officer Josh and subway cop Leonard enter the maintenance tunnels to investigate but Peter and Leonard get separated from Josh, who is then killed trying to find his way back up. Susan encounters what appears to be a shadowy man in a trench coat on a train platform. As she approaches, it unfolds into an insect the size of a human being which has adapted to appear human. The creature abducts Susan and carries her into the tunnels. Manny also enters the tunnels in search of Chuy and comes across Susan, whom he rescues along with Peter and Leonard, before they barricade themselves in a train car.

Susan surmises that the Judas' accelerated metabolism has allowed it to reproduce and that they have evolved to mimic their human prey. The group formulates a plan to get the car moving: Peter will switch the power on, and Manny will switch the tracks. Susan projects that the Judas will spread throughout the tunnels unless they are able to kill the single fertile male. Manny finds Chuy but is killed by the male Judas, so Susan goes in search of him but finds only Chuy. Leonard's injured leg starts bleeding heavily, so he causes a distraction from the others, and is killed. Peter finds a dumbwaiter and puts Susan and Chuy in it, but stays behind to destroy the breed for good. He gets chased into a room where hundreds are nesting, and blows them all up by setting fire to a loose gas pipe, before diving underwater to safety.

The male Judas escapes the blast and goes after Chuy but is distracted by Susan, who has it chase her into the path of an oncoming train. The two make it to the surface, where they are reunited with Peter, who Susan had assumed died in the blast.

Cast

Reception

Mimic received mixed to positive reviews from critics. It currently holds a 61% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[5] Roger Ebert gave the movie 3 1/2 stars saying "Del Toro is a director with a genuine visual sense, with a way of drawing us into his story and evoking the mood with the very look and texture of his shots. He takes the standard ingredients and presents them so effectively that "Mimic" makes the old seem new, fresh and scary."[6]

Box office

According to Box Office Mojo, its domestic gross is $25,480,490; it did not beat its budget of $30 million.[7]

Related works

Mimic was planned as one of three 30-minute short films intended to be shown together. It was expanded into a full-length movie, as was Impostor. The short film Alien Love Triangle remains a 30-minute short film, and has never been released.[8] In 2010, del Toro revealed that he had been working on a director's cut of Mimic and that he is "happy" with it.[9] The director's cut runs for 111 minutes, 6 minutes longer than the theatrical release. It had a store-specific release on September 6, 2011, with a wider release on September 27, 2011.

Sequels

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Mimic (15)". British Board of Film Classification. March 9, 1998. Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 "Mimic (1997)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2013-07-05.
  3. ↑ "theDISH » The Dish - Maintenance Mode". The Dish. Retrieved 2013-07-05.
  4. ↑ "The Three Amigos of Cha Cha Cha". Nytimes.com. 2009-04-26. Retrieved 2013-07-05.
  5. ↑ "Mimic (1997)". Rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved 2013-07-05.
  6. ↑ Ebert, Roger. "Mimic". rogerebert.com. Retrieved 19 September 2015.
  7. ↑ "Mimic (1997)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2013-07-05.
  8. ↑ Kermode, Mark (February 15, 2008). "Aliens come to Wales". The Guardian. London.
  9. ↑ "Guillermo del Toro talks At the Mountains of Madness".

External links

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