Mimic: Guillermo del Toro

If somebody told me this was a 2017 documentary on the New York subway system, I'd believe them. But no, seriously, Mimic is perhaps the weakest of Guillermo del Toro's films, mostly because of all his films it seems the most carved up by studio executives. Parts of it--especially the opening expository scenes--rush by too quickly. Many shots establishing tone, setting, and atmosphere seem clipped. The ending feels too mechanically happy. And, perhaps most crucially, the death of Charles S. Dutton doesn't have the poetry and tragedy one feels del Toro would give it under normal circumstances. Yes, the part where he whistles a defiant song as the monsters bear down on him hurts, but after that it feels like a stock slasher death. I think if del Toro had been let loose, his death would have been excruciatingly effective, much like Irene Visedo's in The Devil's Backbone (2001). But to be fair, when the film finally gets its protagonists trapped in the subway/sewer system, it jolts to life. Del Toro does a great job making that environment a hellish, inescapable world of its own that nestles into your subconscious.

6/10