Mimic: Sentinel (2003)
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Not creepy in the slightest.[/caption]
Twitter Plot Summary: Those giant bugs are still lurking around, this time in a bad homage to Rear Window. The Hitchcock one.
Tying into the universe established in the first two Mimic movies, Mimic: Sentinel (aka Mimic 3) features Marvin (Karl Geary) as one of the kids who benefitted from the treatment derived from the bugs in Mimic. However, whilst he may have had the opportunity to reach adulthood, his life is so plagued with allergies and breathing difficulties that he spends most of his time locked away in his hermetically sealed apartment taking photos of the other residents in the complex. Soon he starts to think that a murderer is picking off the residents but the police, naturally, don’t believe him. Marvin then teams up with his sister Rosy (Alexis Dziena) and fellow resident Carmen (Rebecca Mader) to investigate the disappearances, all the while dealing with his disbelieving mother (Amanda Plummer, looks like her dad) and her equally disbelieving cop boyfriend (John Kapelos, rotund).
Mimic 3 is essentially another remake of Rear Window but with human-sized insects as the villain instead of some inconspicuous guy with spectacles. Apart from that and a final act that turns into a bug hunt they are almost identical and it smacks of lazy writing. The least they could have done is changed a few parts to make them more distinct from one another. Still, at least we have the benefit of seeing genre legend Lance Henriksen as Garbageman, a mysterious resident whose reasons for living in the area soon become apparent as the giant bugs slowly (and very cheaply) start to eat the locals. You’ll be lucky if you can see exactly what’s going on though, if you thought the first two films were badly lit then they have nothing on this mess.
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Seriously dude, you needed to have a much bigger role in this.[/caption]
Much like Mimic 2 this is a low budget feature, but it is spoiled by a plot that doesn’t move along fast enough. This is ironic given that it has a total running time of 76 minutes. In other hands it may have proved to be a story in which you care for the characters and the threat they face. As it is, you’re better off watching Hitchcock’s Rear Window for a better example of how to pull off this sort of story, big giant insects or otherwise. The characters here, with the exception of Lance Henriksen (who will always be awesome) are tarnished by some bad performances and a terrible romantic angle between Marvin and Carmen. Believe it or not, the attractive younger sister is irritating simply because she does little else but smile smugly and lean over so the camera can get a good look down her top. Add the fact that nobody seems the slightest bit worried about Marvin’s voyeuristic obsession of taking photographs of everyone and you have a story that doesn’t add up on several levels.
It’s yet another case of a film being easy to recommend with a few tweaks, but because Sentinel gets so much wrong it’s difficult to enjoy — it doesn’t even have that “so bad it’s good” factor to save it. Indeed, not even Lance Henriksen is enough to justify a viewing, and when even this mighty genre legend can’t save a film then it says a lot.
Score: 1.5/5
