Jeremy Clarke reviews
Mimic
Distributed by
Pioneer LDCE
Cast:
Mira Sorvino
Charles S.Dutton
Jeremy Northam
Josh Brolin
Giancarlo Giannini
F. Murray Abraham
T o combat the deadly virus killing out a generation of New York
children, insect expert Sorvino genetically engineers a superior bug -
sterile and with only a six month lifespan - to decimate the population
of bugs carrying the virus. This saves the city's children - but, three
years later, two street kids turn up with a cereal packet inside which
is one of the six month old bugs. Worse, it's a baby. And deep in the New York
subway system is a whole colony of fearsome adult insects who mimic their worst
enemy (man) in order to ultimately outnumber them and destroy them.
Anyone lucky enough to see this in the cinema will know that its was
very dark - and almost inevitably, many of the subtler variations in
darkness are gone by the time the movie hits video. That said, this PAL
LD version ain't bad: this is not the "almost impossible to see anything
on video" darkness of The Relic and contains numerous underground scenes
where the lighting proves more than adequate.
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro of Cronos fame, this being a U.S.
production boasts a bigger budget and stars, but - to be brutally honest -
neither Sorvino nor Northam bring much of value to the piece.
Supporting players like Dutton (Alien3 ) as an officious Transit
Authority cop and Giannini as a Mexican shoeshiner make no attempt at
looking like stars and consequently fare much better. But the real high
points are the director's narrative skill, the truly awesome bug effects
(as in your back yard variant of Alien/Starship Troopers ) and the piece's
ability to generate moments of near pure horror and or revulsion.
The effects being so impressive, it's a shame the disc isn't in CAV -
something from which the single frame rapid change title sequence
imagery would also have benefited and (as often with Pioneer's Buena
Vista discs) the chaptering is nowhere near adequate (though, again,
it's pretty good from about the middle of side two).
The transfer, if sometimes dark, looks a pretty decent rendition of the source
material. The sidebreak, however, is duff, coming (at 49m 47s) just after a
tense underground scene with an abrupt end that badly interrupts the flow of
the movie. The end (at 2m 24s) of the first scene on side two, during which
Miss Sorvino disappears down a subway tunnel, would make a much better break.
The last chapter starts seemingly reasonably enough at the start of the film's
credits - but then happily someone has decided to include, unannounced, a
trailer on the end. A nice little bonus, but marking by an extra chapter stop
would have been nicer still.
The sound is stunning, with passing trains as good as anything in Thelma And
Louise . That said, if you liked the movie (and personally, I loved it!),
this is a great purchase of a title all but discarded by its UK distributor
which one had assumed unlikely to make PAL LD. At a mere £19.99,
a real treat.
Film: 5/5
Review copyright © Jeremy Clarke, 1998.
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