Mimic, was an early morning press screening at the Arbor theater. Now usually when I see films at the ARBOR, they show them to us in one of their 3 HUGE auditoriums. Not this time. Nope. The led the audience down through the "HALLWAY OF POSTERS", now I don't know about you, but I love the hallway of posters. It's one of those places that I feel most at ease. FUTURE FILMS on the walls. My eyes glaze over with the possibilities of coolness. Lost In Space, Godzilla, Titanic, Starship Troopers, Alien Resurrection, etc. All there, taunting me, beckoning me to watch them. I will... someday.
This is a small screen. No digital sound. I hate this screen. This is a crappy screen. They show no trailers. Press Screenings are cool, cause you get to see the movie free, but you don't get cool trailers. This part sucks. We are just sitting around talking, when all of a sudden the movie starts.
First off, let me say I really enjoyed MIMIC. It is not a great movie. It's not even a great movie within it's miopic genre. What genre is that? Ok, Science-Fiction-Horror-Isolated- Relatively-Unarmed-Group-of-Normal-People-VS-Cool-Monsters. The great films in this genre are ALIEN and John Carpenter's THE THING. ALIENS isn't in this genre because in that film the hardcore weapons add (or takeaway) a dimension to the carnage.
Why do I like it? Well because:
#1 Rob Bottin's monsters are waaaaaaay cool.
These big ol bugs are very well done. With Bottin doing them I expected alot of serious neck wounds, which he is so good at, but alas I didn't get one. Sigh.
#2 I loved the photography, which is light years ahead of this cinematographer's most recent work in SPAWN.
#3 I really liked that cool music. Who did it? Do yourself a favor and go find out. It's worth the trip, I'm gonna find this score.
#4 I dug the dialogue.
The characters all have alot of fun in this film. The words flow out of the characters, and I was constantly surprised and smiling from some of their stuff.
and FINALLY
I jumped quite a bit in this one. Characters that I wanted to be bug food, became bug food. They didn't chicken out. Mira is really quite nice, and seemed to be having alot of fun with some of the yucky scenes. Man, there is this one scene where she has to spread... Just go see it, you'll know what I'm talking about.
WHAT IS WRONG?
The film felt like it was holding back. Like it was scared scared to go off the cliff. It was if I was watching a three act play with only two acts. It builds and builds, but just as it is taking off, the control tower calls the movie down, and grounds it. I really wanted to see this film jump to that next level. But it is a B film, and doesn't ever aspire to more.
WHO CARES?
We need good fun B movies, and this one is it. I left the theater smiling and a bit exhilerated. I wasn't a blithering idiot afterwards, like Alien and The Thing left me, but I did have a 'good' feeling. So there.
