Mimic 3 Film Set
Directors: Guillermo del Toro, Jean de Segonzac, J.T. Petty
Cast: Mira Sorvino, Alix Koromzay, Karl Greary
Review by Brian M. Sammons
Now if you’re a fan of director Guillermo del Toro or of the killer big bug movie from the ’90s, Mimic, then you might already have it on Blu-ray. That’s because an unrated director’s cut came out on Blu-ray just a few months back. So is this a case of the dreaded double dipping, a la the 30 + versions of all the various Evil Dead films? No, not really, as it also has two other movies in the package. But are the two (widely considered lesser) sequels just along for the ride? You know some padding to get you to buy Mimic all over again? Because really, who the hell would need or want those direct to sequels on Blu-ray? Well that can be debated, as I’m sure there are fans of those two movies out there somewhere. However, I just ain’t one of them. But if you are, or if you think you may be, keep on reading.
First and foremost there is del Toro’s original, Mimic. This is the exact same version of the movie that Lionsgate released on Blu-ray a few months back. That means it is the unrated director’s cut and has retained all the extras from the last release. That’s a very cool and good thing. So often when multi-packs like this come out, the extras are stripped out or just left behind. It’s nice to see that’s not the case here. As for the story that started it all, it’s the near future a deadly plague is killing the children of New York City in droves that’s being spread by cockroaches. Enter a brilliant, beautiful entomologist named Susan Tyler, played by Mira Sorvino, who genetically splices a bunch of bug DNA together to make a bug killing bug that mimics its prey while it’s murdering them. Five years later and … yeah can you guess where this is going? That’s right, giant mutant bugs that can kind of look like humans at a distance, thus the title of this film, who have taken to munching on people. Naturally. It’s up to Dr. Tyler and a handful of heroes to save the day. Or so you would think. Four years later, the direct-to-video sequel came out.
Mimic 2 picks up a few years after the first one. The big bad bugs have not only survived, but have continued to evolve, including coming up with a new gruesome trick: ripping the faces off of people and wearing them as masks. Nice. The star this time around is Alix Koromzay, who was actually in the first movie as Mira Sorvino’s coworker. That’s kind of nice. I mean, if none of the stars from the original wanted to come back for this, at least they established some link between the two movies, other than the bugs. Anyway, Alix plays a school teacher named Remi who has the bad luck to be teaching at a school where the bugs have a nest. Add a cop as a shoehorned love interest and some students and you got a new group of characters to battle the bugs. And really, that’s about it. This sequel is far more B-movie than the first, and it’s certainly not as good as the original, but it’s not horrible and can be kind of fun in a dopey sort of way. The same really can’t be said of the next Mimic movie.
The third big bug flick is basically Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window with giant, mutant bugs. No, really. Another Direct-to-video flick, subtitled Sentinel, actor Karl Greary does the James Stewart bit as a man named Marvin afflicted with the very sickness that the bugs were created to kill off in the first film. Locked inside a germ free room, he peeps on his neighbors to pass the time. Unfortunately, that time passed by agonizingly slow in this movie as it is a chore and a bore to sit through. Eventually Marvin starts seeing a strange looking man in a trench coat (hmm, wonder who or what that is) killing and abducting his neighbors. Eventually the man’s sister and sexy neighbor become his investigating accomplices and this all leads to a somewhat lackluster showdown with a couple of big bad bugs. And that’s about it for this one, which is easily the weakest film of the bunch. It’s not horrible, it’s just very ho-hum and does nothing new for the franchise.
As for the extras, all the ones from the previous releases of all three films have been transferred to this set. Naturally the first Mimic movie has the lion’s share of goodies for it, including a very good audio commentary with del Toro and a gaggle of featurettes of various lengths. Mimic 2 has no commentary track and just two very short featurettes. Mimic 3: Sentinel has a single short behind the scenes featurette, but it does have a commentary track. All the movies look good on Blu-ray, with part 3 oddly being the best looking, despite being the least of the three films in every other way. Weird.
So in the end, I can recommend the new Mimic 3 Film Set. The first movie is easily the best and worth the price of admission just by its self. The second film is not great, but flirts with being good. The third film, while far from good, is still worth a watch at least. So for three movies, all in HD, two on Blu-ray for the first time (and the only way to get Mimic 2 & 3 on Blu-ray at all), with a bunch of extras, consider this one a must have for fans of killer bug movies.
