Mimic

Ugh. I hate bugs.

Don't worry, I knew what I was getting into with this as Mimic is a Guillermo del Toro film. As the man himself once said, "I have a sort of fetish for insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things." Dark this is, and full of bugs...big ass bugs living in the New York underground.

From the beginning...

The newly discovered Stickler's virus is spread by the common cockroach and threatens to kill off an entire generation of children. Then entomologist Susan Tyler introduces a genetically engineered bug, the Judas Breed to kill off the cockroaches. The bugs live in a hive system with only one fertile male and are designed to die out after one generation.

Then, three years later, two young boys want to make a quick buck by selling a collection of butterflies and "the weird bug" to Susan, whom they refer to as 'the Bug Lady'. She recognizes the breed as a mutant of her own creation. Together with her husband, Dr. Peter Mann, who works for the CDC, she wants to investigate in the subway tunnels.

What they find are bugs of unbelievable size, all female, and they are all out to kill them. The Judas Breed has mutated through what is known as mimicry, hence the film title, but this should have taken many generations.

In any case, stumbling through the subway tunnels are Susan, Peter, his CDC colleague Josh (who will meet a nasty end), a subway cop and an elderly gentlemen, who made his way through the tunnels looking for a boy (his grandson?), who seems to be autistic. Together, they not only have to stay alive through the bug infestation and try to make it back to street level, but they also have to kill off the entire species of Judas Breed before it can migrate out of the tunnel systems. Not everyone of the group survives, with the cop heroically sacrificing himself for the greater good, but in the end humanity prevails.

The opening credits are visually stunning and those bugs are really disgusting in any size and state of development.

5/10

Men in Black 3

Will Smith saves the world. Like he does.

Boris the Animal escapes from a maximum security prison on the moon where he spent the last 40 years courtesy of young Agent K. After he escapes he gets a time travel device to go back to 1969 to do away with K before he shoots off one of his arms and locks him up.

After he kills K in the past, Agent J feels uncomfortable and appears to be the only one in the agency to know K ever existed - apart from Agent O who knew him back in the day and realizes what has happened. J goes off to the past to restore order and save K's life.

This is the story.

Unfortunately, there is not much of Tommy Lee Jones in this one, you know, having been eradicated and all. His younger self is played by Josh Brolin (not a bad choice). The big bad guy is played by a barely recognizable Jemaine Clement and the modern day Agent O is Emma Thompson.

Not a bad cast and a somewhat entertaining film, although the MiB films do lose some of of their initial shine and humor.

6/10