MIMIC

Let's put it this way, if you like giant bug movies (and who doesn't?) 
you will like MIMIC. It delivers the giant bug thrills you crave. If 
an hour and a half in the sewers of New York with bugs all over you 
doesn't sound like a gas, then get the hell out of here, what's the 
matter with you?

Alas, it is an Ugly looking picture, spending most of its running 
time in a sleazy closed off maze of subway tunnels with lots of 
sewage and bug goo and dark, dripping pipes. Living in Manhattan 
as I do, it was the wrong film to see for the purposes of 
"escapism", there aint no wind-swept beaches or pretty stars, 
only grit and grime and loads of slime. 

On the plus side, the rather by-the-numbers script (which seems 
almost like a retread of THE RELIC) is punched up with a few 
glimmers of originality. For example, if you have seen THE RELIC 
you know by now the staple of all these post-modern horror films 
is the shiftless, obese black boy and his pal, a skinny white boy. 
They arrive bickering, at the feet of our plucky scientist heroine 
(played by the demurely sexy Penelope Ann Miller in THE RELIC and 
the babe-azon Mira Sorvino in this picture) who proceeds to 
enlighten them (and, presumably, us) to the scientific principles 
behind the forthcoming horrorshow. Of course it is an unwritten 
rule that the kids cannot die in these films, and they lived 
through the RELIC, but I will reveal, with ghoulish relish, 
that the kids this time are not so lucky, and big kuodos to 
this film for that.

There are a few other memorable things, the bugs are cool as 
hell, Mira wears some really hip Nat West shoes, and the 
lighting is at times, quite Ridley Scottish. One bad note is the 
guy who plays Mira's husband. He comes across as a very self-absorbed 
old school sort of prick, yet we're supposed to like him for some 
reason, (possibly because he bears the faintest resemblance to 
David Duchovny). I spent the majority of his screen time thinking 
"he don't deserve her", and praying for his quick and painful death. 

B-