The remedy is sometimes more painful than the problem: in Mimic that's what scientist Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) discovers to her cost. She succeeds in vanquishing a plague of disease-carrying cockroaches from the streets of New York by breeding a colony of roach-eating insects; the trouble is that, three years later, the bugs she bred are getting bigger, and they're hungry for blood – human blood.
Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro and his co-screenwriters, who include John Sayles, have set up an interesting premise with Mimic, which is clearly intended to be a thinking person's horror film, much like the Alien series. For most of its length it succeeds; the monsters are pretty terrifying creations, and there's a ruthlessness to the film which is refreshing. But, in the end, it's just a monster picture.
Del Toro, whose Mexican film Cronos became a cult item, fails to bring much needed originality to the picture. Part of the trouble is a lack of really interesting characters with which the audience can identify, though Mira Sorvino proves to be a resourceful heroine – and there are plot inconsistencies, too. Mimic intrigues for a while, but it doesn't quite stay the distance.
