I watched Mimic (1997) again today. I saw it when it first came out. I didn’t like it then and I didn’t like it again now. The director, Guillermo del Toro, fucking hated it and disowned it.
The movie begins with flashing lights and newspaper clippings popping up on screen. They’re trying to give me vertigo or something. I had to look away.
A horrible disease is killing all the children in Manhattan. It’s caused by roach droppings or something. Despite the outbreak raging for two years it hasn’t spread off the island somehow. They set up this incredible idea and go nowhere with it so it’s really short on details. Supposedly this is the next great plague that will wipe out an entire generation but we don’t get to see anything so it doesn’t hold any weight. Roaches supposedly can’t be killed with poison so the hot science lady has to frankenstein a new type of bug that secretes chemicals that both attract the roaches and kill them (I thought chemicals can’t kill roaches?) by speeding up their metabolism, making the roaches starve to death within hours. It works, the disease is cured, there’s a press conference in which hot science lady makes jokes that piss off old science man and he leaves.
Skip ahead three years (I think). Hot science lady is now married to CDC man who has unlimited power and can close places down whenever there is a disease outbreak. This movie is eerily familiar to real life. CDC man likes to piss off the police by closing places down and opening other places up he’s not supposed to be because the CDC gives him unlimited power to go above the heads of the police. And yes, his name in the movie is Dr. Mann, so CDC man is technically his name.
A priest of some unknown ethnic extraction is chased on the roof of his neon church by a giant bug. He falls off the roof and a giant bug (maybe the same one, maybe a different one) drags him into a manhole. A boy with some disease watches and immitates the clicking sound of the bugs with the spoons he likes to play with. That’s his entire character, he plays with spoons and can identify the size and style of any shoe from 200 yards away. The priest is hiding maybe 20 people who have yellow fever inside the church. Yellow fever is only transmitted by mosquitoes. There hasn’t been an outbreak in the US in a very long time and yet somehow a whole building full of infected people catches the eye of CDC man who pisses off the police by getting the church closed down.
Two boys bring hot science lady a cereal box with a giant bug inside and she pays them $20. She gives them a lecture on termites because it’s foreshadowing for how they kill the giant bugs at the end. The giant bugs are all female except for a single male who fertilizes all the eggs. This ensures that they are an evolutionary dead end because if anything happens to him they will all die out. Movies think this weakness is a strength because this is at least the second time they pulled this (the other being Reign of Fire, which had dragons instead of bugs). Hot science lady does some test on the giant bug and discovers that it is the frankenstein bug she invented three years earlier. This is impossible because they were made sterile but somehow they managed to find a way to breed because porn finds a way. Movies like to have sterile creatures find a way to breed and scientists are all shocked pikachu face even though it’s happened a thousand times already. While hot science lady is distracted by something a full-sized giant bug comes in the window, which had previously been shut by her alternative girlfriend, and giant bug steals the baby giant bug because insects now care about their children.
There’s a subplot where hot science lady and CDC man are trying to have a baby. It goes nowhere.
Hot science lady, alternative girlfriend, and CDC man go to the subway where the two boys found the bug and they break in a utility closet while ghetto talking black cop is getting his shoes shined by disease kid’s father, who shines shoes for a living. Hot science lady drops some beads (pills?) off a shelf that go under a cabinet and CDC man drops his light in a pit behind the cabinet trying to find out where the beads went. Hot science lady sticks her hand under the cabinet and is about to get it bit off by a giant bug when ghetto talking black cop walks in and stops them because they’re not supposed to be there. CDC man is pissed because black cop doesn’t respect his authoritah so he threatens to come back tomorrow with a permit that will make black cop his bitch. He does.
The next day Hot science lady gets a call from alternative girlfriend about some shit that was dug up out of the sewers by her friend who’s in a band. Hot science lady goes to the sewage plant while CDC man goes to the subway with some guy I swear wasn’t in the movie before but they need one more person to get eaten so they wrote him in last minute. CDC man, new guy, and black cop move the cabinet away and the whole wall is missing. They descend seven stories underground looking for bugs. They come to a room filled with shit and black cop makes a “joke” about “elephant motherfuckers” sticking shit on the ceiling. When I saw the movie in the theater everyone except me burst out in hoots and shouts for like ten minutes straight (gay) thinking this was the funniest thing that has ever happened in the history of comedy. I didn’t think it was funny then and I still don’t think it’s funny.
At the sewage plant hot science lady, alternative girlfriend, and boy in a band look at the giant bug that was found in the sewers. It has a human face because why not? That’s the whole name of the movie, it mimics humans for some reason. We never see alternative girlfriend or boy in a band again. Hot science lady goes to the subway where her husband has already been for hours and she’s waiting for him! She runs into a giant bug and it abducts her. It doesn’t abduct anyone else, just her.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, disease boy goes into the church and follows the bugs to their lair because they speak with spoon clanks just like him so they think he’s one of them. Also the two boys who sell hot science lady bugs go down the subway and are eaten by giant bugs.
CDC man, new guy, and black cop finally find a bug and black cop steps on it which causes the wooden scaffolding to collapse and he and CDC man fall down into an old underground army base and have no way out. New guy is still up top and he goes to get help. He gets hopelessly lost, runs into giant bugs, climbs up a tube to a workshop or something with a sewing machine, and the giant bug stabs him in the leg and blood shoots out his mouth as if his body was a giant tube of toothpaste filled with blood instead of toothpaste and squeezing any part of his body makes blood shoot out his mouth. He dies. I don’t think they even gave him a name (the Internet.com says he’s Josh Brolin who plays a character named Josh but I don’t think they ever say his name in the movie).
CDC man and black cop spend maybe 40 minutes standing around doing nothing when they find an abandoned subway car that black cop says is invincible and will continue to run forever because it was build in Coney Island. CDC man asks if he can hotwire the train to take them to the surface and black cop says it’s impossible, he’s just a cop, he has no idea how to hotwire a train. Of course if the train could go all the way to the surface why didn’t they just follow the tracks instead of standing there doing nothing for 40 minutes? There were no bugs around the whole time, they were perfectly safe. Don’t know.
Oh yeah, I forgot, disease boy’s father goes looking for him with a cigarette lighter and a straight razor. He finds hot science lady who is beneath a manhole that in one scene is looking directly up onto street level with people walking over it and in the next scene is seven stories under ground near the army base. Father somehow finds black cop and CDC man and they help hot science lady out of the manhole just as a giant bug is flying up to get her. It chases all of them into the abandoned train and black cop shoots it 31 times (I counted) without reloading. He says he “emptied two clips” into the bug but we never see him reload. Okay, the Glock 17 does hold 17 rounds so if he did reload that would cover all the shots he took, but we never see him reload. I’m still calling bullshit on this one. It stabs black cop in the leg before dying. Remember this, it’s a major plot point.
The giant bugs are attracted to human blood, because they eat people. Hot science lady cuts the scent gland, which is covered in rubber cement like everything in the movie, and it makes the sound of crinkling cellophane like everything in the movie, and they rub it all over the windows so the giant bugs don’t smell the blood.
Oh yeah, there’s a scene somewhere where hot science lady talks to the old science man about bugs and they reconcile or something. I didn’t think it was important.
In the train hot science lady is explaining that “insects mimic their predators” which is why the giant bugs have human faces. Only we never see humans predating giant bugs, only the opposite. Every single encounter between humans and giant bugs it was the giant bugs who are the predators, so they are mimicking their prey for some reason. Also, if they communicate by scent and sound and live in near total dark subways how do they even know what a human face looks like? Don’t know.
Hot science lady explains that since the frankenstein bugs had super fast metabolisms rather than making them starve to death quicker it made them evolve quicker, and they evolved into people for some reason. They are living in the subway and can travel all over the city, and the country, but they haven’t left Manhattan yet for some reason in three years but hot science lady is scared that they will.
Black cop says he can hotwire the train and get them out of there, even though an hour earlier he said he couldn’t and got pissed when CDC man implied that he could. He needs father and CDC man to go and switch the tracks and reconnect the power. He can’t go because his leg is bleeding and the giant bugs will eat him, and hot science lady can’t go because she’s a girl. The two guys need to cut the scent gland in half and wear it so the giant bugs can’t tell they’re human. Again, if a bug can’t tell you’re human when it’s right on top of you because of your smell then how do they know what a face looks like? Don’t know.
CDC man restores the power by bridging the gap in the broken wire with his glasses. Father finds his son but the scent gland stops working because plot and the giant bugs eat him. Hot science lady has to go out and find him and she finds the boy and brings him back.
The train is moving again but it stops after a few feet. Oh noes, what will they do? CDC man found a dumbwaiter that can take them to the surface. Why didn’t he find it during the 40 minutes he was in the room with black cop doing nothing? Don’t know.
Black cop has to distract the giant bugs with his blood. He shoots one several times with his infinite ammo but it still kills him.
Despite living with the giant bugs for a few days and literally being incapable of fear because of his disease, we see disease boy afraid for the first time because he has to waste time to allow the bugs to get there because plot. CDC man pushes the boy and hot science lady in the dumbwaiter and pulls the cable making it go to the surface. He then runs and distracts the giant bugs. One of the bugs is climbing up the dumbwaiter and hot science lady kicks the door shut and it falls on the giant bug and crushes it.
CDC man finds a room full of all the eggs and it’s full of flammable gas. He breaks the gas cylinders open and the giant bugs start attacking him. He creates a spark by banging metal against metal which causes an explosion. The explosion instantly kills the nearby bug but despite being at the very center of the explosion because he’s the one who caused it CDC man is able to dive into a pool of water and survive because plot. The explosion is so powerful that it destroys the entire subway and shoots the manholes off the surface seven stories up, taking out an entire city block, at least.
Not on the surface because where the fuck does this movie take place again? They play fast and loose with how many levels the subway has. Hot science lady cuts herself to distract the king bug - wait, did I explain that part yet? There’s only one male who fertilizes all the eggs. That’s why there’s so many, because all the females lay eggs and one male goes around and inseminates them all, which is not how bugs work, but plot. Now their greatest strength is their greatest weakness since the king bug is going to kill disease boy. Hot science lady gets it to chase her into the path of a speeding subway train which comes out of nowhere and crushes the king bug. The train then disappears conveniently because disease boy was standing on the track and didn’t move out of the way because he doesn’t know any better. He’s not afraid of the speeding train because he’s not afraid of anything, so they had to make the train hit the bug and then vanish so it didn’t hit the boy too. Somehow they didn’t notice the huge explosion.
Hot science lady and disease boy finally, finally make it to the really real surface and old science man appears there for some reason and says “The entire subway is cooked, nothing could have survived there.” Just at that moment CDC man walks up the subway steps to the surface and old science man looks disappointed he was wrong. He then disappears because CDC man, hot science lady, and disease boy hug. It looks like they get to adopt him because their first attempt at having a baby failed so now they have a 10 year old kid because his only living relative has died. Happy ending.
Or is it? If CDC man can survive that means the bugs can survive too. Also the idea that there’s a single male is just some hypothesis by hot science lady, it’s never confirmed nor denied in the movie itself, opening up the possibility of two direct to video sequels.
I think the movie we got was a whole Swiss cheese of holes and uninteresting giant monster tripe. I would have much preferred a movie about the disease in the beginning, where it came from, how they discovered cockroaches were the cause, and how they eliminated it. That was my opinion in 1997 and that’s my opinion today.
Mimic still will get your attention and keep you mildly entertained if you shut your brain off. I give it a C-.
