Mimic 3: centinela

What do you get if you take Aliens, Rear Window, Boy in the Plastic Bubble, and some other stuff, and mix it with a small budget? It may sound like a mess, but the film surprises a bit.

Giant mutated bugs going berserk is nothing new, but this theme still works somehow. In the film, the lighting is kept low, making attack scenes difficult to see. This was intentional: it leaves to the imagination what the lack of funding could not deliver in special effects. The set up of the movie is painfully slow, but the film picks up later on. Characters are written as typically shallow horror film victims, but the acting (except for the usual screaming girls) is above the script.

The whack lead character is the main weakness. He looks like he belongs in a medication info-mercial. He's written as a paranoid, bi-polar, angst ridden, stalking clod. Every relationship he has is dysfunctional; he argues incessantly with everybody. Then he wonders why nobody will listen even when he shows photos of things he's seen. The sub-plot involving his mother and a cop is just childish. Since when does a grown man fit in a small refrigerator?

Frankly, you'll root for the roach invaders to shut them all up. Good fast-food entertainment, though.

I believe the village idiots came together and decided to make a movie. The sister character was horrible. The mother character was horrible. The detective character was horrible. The main character was badly written-but the actor did all he could to save the part. I only watched the movie through to the end to see if it would get any better. It did not!!! Could somebody explain the plot to me? Three quarters of the movie is the main character looking through his camera at various uninteresting people in the city. The movie is not very scary. The characters' motivations were not defined even once. They simply do things for no apparent reason. Let's not even talk about character development. I believe the word is non-existent. I blame the writers. This movie should have had much more thought put into it.

J.T. Perry directs this stylish entry in the giant bug series. In this entry, a diseased boy who takes pictures of neighbors begins witnessing murders. As it turns out, the murderers are surviving insects of the Judase breed (The species created in the original mimic to kill diseased insects), and soon they are eating people in the apartment building that he lives in. "Mimic 3" has good acting, especially from the wonderfully underrated Lance Hendrickson (Aliens, alien vs. Predator, the untold, super mario bros.), impressive special effects, and stylish direction. The film is truly the sparticus of the mimic series. Unfortunately, it's just too slow to get going.

I'll have to say, this third sequel was quite good for it's simplicity. Instead of scaring you with the actual Judas Breed man-size insects -created in the first- it relies on it's plot to creep you out, while taking a totally different approach to the evil of this bizarre 'cure' for a childhood disease. After 'Mimic 2' I felt quite wary about this movie, having never even heard one was being made. It's just that this plot intrigues me so much, I don't seem to care if it's a bad approach or acting (as in part 2; NOT this one -part 3). I felt pretty good about this movie and it SIMPLY was entertaining, as well as scary in it's own rite.

7/10 - thank you

At first, I couldn't help but wonder why the opening credits for Mimic 3 were rendered in a Saul Bass style typeface; it seemed a rather unusual choice for a film about giant killer cockroaches.

However, as the film unfolded, all became clear: writer/director J.T. Petty clearly fancies himself as some kind of modern-day Hitchcock, shamelessly ripping off the master of suspense's classic thriller Rear Window for this totally unnecessary second sequel to Guillermo Del Toro's rather disappointing original.

Petty, however, clearly possesses none of Hitchcock's flair for storytelling, and apart from some lingering shots of Alexis Dziena's cleavage, his film is an absolute snooze-fest. Even consummate professional Lance Henrikson, who usually provides value for money whatever the project, looks totally bored (and who can blame him?).

Hopefully, Mimic 3 marks the end of this second rate series, but you never can tell... like roaches, bad horror franchises are hard to kill.