By: Mr Disgusting
Rub it in, just rub it in! One thing with being a news reporter, sometimes it's better to keep your opinions to yourself. After all of the Wes Craven problems, I said Dimension looked as if it was really going downhill, which I now take back. After watching
Mimic: Sentinel, I've come to believe Dimension might have forged a new beginning, and could finally be taking a step forward in the right direction.
J.T. Petty, director of
Mimic: Sentinel takes his hat off to Hitchcock in this third film in what seemed like a dying franchise; need I remind you of Guillermo Del Toro's (
Blade 2,
Hellboy) venture into
Mimic in 1997? Take Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 classic
Rear Window, change the characters around, add awesome monsters, and you have a modern day version called
Mimic: Sentinel!
Marvin (Karl Geary) has a problem; he's hypersensitive, which means he's extremely allergic to many things. In
Rear Window, James Stewart can't leave his apartment because he has a broken leg, in
Mimic: Sentinel, Marvin can't leave because of his allergies. Both take pictures of people on the street as a hobby, to keep themselves occupied. Marvin's little sister Rosy (Alexis Dziena) is determined to find Marvin a mate, and brings Carmen (Rebecca Mader) into his life. Marvin's Mom is romancing with a cop, who thinks Marvin is crazy for some of the accusations he comes up with later in the film.
Slowly things come together, and Marvin starts making some interesting revelations, but he can't find the connection. Then he realizes that a new garbage man (played by the awesome Lance Henriksen) moved in, and that's when things began to occur. Things progress in an obvious fashion if you've seen
Rear Window. Marvin thinks he sees things, but no one believes him. His sister sees something as well that catches her attention, and the next thing you know Rosy is over at the garbage mans house snooping around.... just like in
Rear Window. Turns out there's some Judas Breed insects over there, they are called soldiers. Who knows what's going on? Whats the big secret? Can they be stopped?
Even though this is a rip-off of an old classic, it's still an extraordinary sight, and J.T. Petty has shown Dimension that he could be around a long time. His camera work is fantastic; he uses a lot of POV shots, where we see what Marvin sees when he glares through the camera. He switches cameras from black and white to color for effect and it looks extremely impressive. Another thing he does very effectively is when Marvin is away from his camera, we get a zoom into the camera ourselves and get to see what he's missing out on, which is also very Hitchcockian (ex: The bomb under the table routine). During one of the first Judas attacks, the mix of great directing, camera work and editing make for a vicious kill. The cuts were very tight, blood was flying everywhere and the creature was screaming as it stabbed its unsuspecting victim dozens of times with its huge claws.
The Judas insects were so incredibly haunting, they looked like Max Schrek from the 1922 classic vampire flick
Nosferatu. They walked with their arms tight to their sides and sort of waddled while making a terrifying sound. When they attacked, the turn into bug and attack with incredible speed. The special FX was excellent, the bugs looked very real, and the blood was used quite well. During another awesome shot by Petty, he uses one long moving shot and pans through and entire room like the dinner scene in
Goodfellas, during the entire shot we see a trashed room filled with blood, and some other surprises.
Overall, I found this movie to be a lot of fun, a lot more than I expected. The movie was pulled together very well with its mix of great acting, directing, editing, and sound effects. Watching this I feel like our culture is moving towards the ways of Asia, where the video industry is almost better than what you can see in the theaters! With profits dropping in theaters and video sales zooming, I wouldn't be surprised if things continued in this direction. Check out
Mimic: Sentinel, you won't be disappointed; it's a fun ride.
Score: 6 / 10
