| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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MIMIC 2
Rating: 
USA. 2001.
Director – Jean De Segonzac, Screenplay – Joel Soisson, Producers – Joel Soisson & Mike Leahy, Photography – Nathan Hope, Music – Walter Werzowa, Visual Effects – Neo Digital Imaging (Supervisor – Jamison Goei), Special Effects Supervisor – David Waine, Makeup Effects – Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Production Design – Deborah Raymond & Dorian Vernacchio. Production Company – Dimension Films/Neo Art and Digital.
Cast:
Alix Koromzay (Remi Panos), Bruno Campos (Detective Klaski), Will Estes (Nicky), Gaven Eugene Lucas (Sal Geary), Edward Albert (Darksuit), Jon Polito (Morrie), Jim O’Heir (Lou)
Plot: Entomologist Remi Panos is now teaching at a high school and not having much success with the men in her life. She becomes a focus of a police investigation when several of the men she has dated start turning up dead and mutilated. Then she and two of her students are trapped in the school by one of the intelligent insects. She comes to realize it has evolved to the point that it has become fixated on her.
Mimic (1997) was a modest and unassumingly effective hit, if it wasn’t exactly a film that set the whole world alight. It was followed by this direct-to-video sequel and the further Mimic 3 (2003). The only returnee from the original is actress Alix Koromzay who played Mira Sorvino’s assistant there and now takes the lead here. The script is from Joel Soisson, who has written and produced an impressive number of genre films including Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), The Prophecy (1995) and sequels, Phantoms (1998), Dracula 2000 (2000) and Highlander: Endgame (2000). The director is Jean de Segonzac who makes his feature debut here after having made numerous episodes of acclaimed tv series such as Homicide: Life on the Streets and Oz.
Mimic 2 is quite an effective sequel. Jean De Segonzac directs with some eerie effect with the creature scuttling behind and above people, snatching them by surprise. And the action moves quite effectively. The most eerily bizarre moment is where the creature appears to Alix Koromzay offering her a piece of pizza as a gift. Of course the creature is now ten times larger than in the original, but the effects, particularly its trick of putting on a human face like it were a shell, are quite effective. Joel Soisson’s script incorporates some interesting behavioural ideas from the world of insects, and he characterizes Alix Koromzay and her men problems with a sense of humour.
Alas there is one gaping hole at the center of the film – and that is that Soisson never explains why the creature seems to develop a fixation on Alix Koromzay and why just her. (Mimic 2 is really when you think about it quite peculiarly an insectoid stalker film). As the whole of the film seems dependent on this, the noticeable lack of explanation leaves a huge gap in the film. Similarly early on Soisson has Alix Koromzay saying that the creatures can’t mimic the features of individual people, and contradicts this by later in the piece having the insect clearly do so.
Copyright Richard Scheib 2001
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