MIMIC 2 (2001) Why can't it mimic a good movie? Here's what I remember of Mimic 1: Mira Sorvino playing a scientist, heh heh heh. Oh, and something about giant cockroaches that looked like bag people, some of which were scary enough without the chitin. Inevitably, the sequel must come to pass, and I can pretty much guarantee that I'll be remembering even less about this one in five years' time. I don't remember what Alix Koromzay did in the first movie, but I think she's the only holdover from it, aside from a giant cockroach that's developing its mimicry skills enough that it can do a fairly impressive impersonation of a chubby janitor. Here, she plays a schoolteacher by day, an entomologist by night, with some serious relationship issues. She dates a lot, but sabotages them by constantly talking about insects (and never putting out). For some reason, she's consistently disappointed in the outcome of these dates (I can't imagine what she could be doing wrong) she always goes home and takes a Polaroid of herself in the throes of heartbreak, and writes the guy's name on the bottom of the photo, and tacks up each picture on her closet door of rejection. HOLY FUCKED UP WOMAN! Anyway, a giant cockroach wants to mate with her and is killing all of her dates. There's a shadowy bunch of government guys led by Edward Albert, who look around for cockroach semen with ultraviolet lights, and Bruno Campos as a cop who smells something fishy about all these face-chewed-off bodies of men around this woman's apartment. And there's Will Estes as a parentally-abused former student who thinks he has a shot with her. Somebody should take that kid aside and tell him just how thrilling dates with this lady are. Eventually, everybody gets tangled up in the mess at the inner-city school she teaches at, with the cockroach silently constructing hallway-obstructing barriers of chairs and desks damn near before you can turn around. That didn't bother me as much as when it brings her flowers. Problems and clichés abound, like how the strung-up body only falls when somebody's directly underneath it, and too many false endings where every time you think it's over, it just flogs on (a metaphor for her description of how when a cockroach is decapitated, it dies nine days later when it starves to death, maybe?). Mimic 2 boasts a zippy opening-credits sequence, the most depressing description of ant life, ever, and some pretty cool effects when we get our first good look at the roach, but after that, not so much...the more we see of it, the more it looks like just another movie monster. The thrills are very pedestrian, with the only bit of inspiration coming when they use the Polaroid to take pictures behind doors and around corners to make sure the way is clear...there's something creepy and suspenseful about waiting for those pictures to develop. It's watchable (due in no small part to Koromzay's oddly compelling, self-flagellating performance...and of course her two scenes in scanty clothing), but way too far away from good for me to wish on anybody. Verdict: just another sequel. BACK TO THE R's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE