Mimic

Directed by Guillermo del Toro, Mimic follows entomologist Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) as she’s forced to fend for her life after a breed of cockroaches she created mutates into something far deadlier than anyone could’ve anticipated. Filmmaker del Toro, working from a script written with Matthew Robbins, offers up a mostly watchable yet pervasively erratic thriller that’s rarely as engrossing or captivating as its premise might’ve indicated, as del Toro floods the proceedings with a grimy, relentlessly dark visual sensibility that generally prevents the viewer from wholeheartedly connecting to the material or characters – with the less-than-engrossing atmosphere compounded by a somewhat padded midsection that emphasizes a series of hopelessly uninvolving, uninteresting elements and subplots. (This is especially true of everything involving Giancarlo Giannini’s subway shoe shiner and his autistic ward.) It’s clear, then, that Mimic‘s extremely mild success is due almost entirely to the inherently compelling setup and a third act that actually fares better than one might’ve expected, although it’s equally apparent, ultimately, that a picture revolving around human-sized killer cockroaches should be less of a slog and much more fun than this.

**1/2 out of ****