Dimension

In Mimic, a rare disease is crippling and killing the children of New York City. After all other avenues of finding a cure fail, a young entomologist played by Mira Sorvino comes up with the answer. See, the disease is spread by cockroaches, so she creates a new variation of the cockroach called the Judas breed. Its secretions are deadly to the other cockroaches, and soon the cockroach population is wiped out in the Big Apple. Three years later the Judas breed, which was supposed to be incapable of breeding and die out within months, are not only still around but are also evolved into huge mantis/cockroach mutations that can roughly mimic (hence the title) human beings.

The scare aspect early on is that the insects could be anywhere at any time, since they look enough like humans in dark areas. Unfortunately this aspect of the plot is dropped about half way through the movie and it becomes a standard monsters-chasing-people-through-a-dark-place movie, along the same lines as Aliens or the raptor scenes on Jurassic Park. These scenes, set in abandoned tunnels under the city, are done well enough but just seem too familiar. If the film kept up the mimic concept throughout the film this might have been a classic in paranoia. A good film, but it should have been a great film.

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