FILM REVIEW OF "MIMIC" (1997)

Mutated cockroaches that stand as tall as Zulu warriors menace Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, and Charles S. Dutton in director Guillermo Del Toro’s claustrophobic horror opus “Mimic” (* OUT OF ****), a verminously boring piece of skullbuggery, that takes itself too seriously to have any camp value much less scare merit. While the bugs look convincing enough when you can see them, they don’t make the skin at the back of your neck crawl. Only somebody whose never screamed at a horror movie would have to sleep with their lights on with a can of Reid insecticide under their pillow after suffering through “Mimic.”

A pestilent epidemic spread by cockroaches is killing children by the hundreds in New York city when a group of scientists led by entomologist Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) create a genetic mutant called the Judas Breed. They have manufactured a super cockroach in their labs that can kill other cockroaches, but these little buggers cannot reproduce themselves and have a life expectancy of six months. At least, that’s what Susan Tyler and Peter Mann (Jeremy Northam of “The Net”) thought. The Judas Breed eradicates the cockroach plague and spares a generation of children. Everybody breathes a sight of relief, while deep within those abandoned New York subway tunnels, a specimen has somehow managed to survive and breed. Three years later, out it comes to feed and its favorite lunch morsel is human.

Mann tracks these vicious critters into the subway catacombs with the help of Leonard, a grumpy subway cop (the ever reliable Charles S. Dutton), who doesn’t have a clue (like most characters in horror movies) what he’s gotten himself into as the scientist’s tour guide. Meanwhile, Susan finds herself alone in a subway when a bug snatches her up and flies off with her. Miraculously, the critter doesn’t chomp her like it does its previous victims. In fact, other than flying off with her, the bug leaves her intact, dumping her in its slime. Eventually, Susan scrambles through the maze of tunnels and finds Peter. So do a swarm of the bugs. Our heroes hole up in a subway car. Just as the bugs are about to tear their way inside and eat these human sardines, Susan figures out that the bugs can smell their blood. She gets everybody to smear themselves with dead bug guts, and they leave them momentarily alone. Talk about repellent!

The premise that “Mimic” neglects to explain is how these mutants found a way to replicate themselves and take the general shape and appearance of a man huddled up in a trench coat. Gifted scenarists such as John (“Lone Star”) Sayles, Matthew (“Dragonslayer”) Robbins, and Steven (“Kafka”) Soderbergh contributed to writer-director Guillermo (“Cronos”) Del Toro’s heavily derivative script, but none of them seems to have worked the bugs out of their roachy script. “Mimic” appears to mimic “The Lost World” in two respects. The “Mimic” scientists overlook the possibility that their genetic deviants could survive in the wild like “The Lost World” dinosaurs, and one of the film’s better set-pieces shamelessly rips-off the RV scene in “Lost World,” but with considerably less suspense or tension. The only sweat that you will break in “Mimic” is waiting for director Del Toro and his writers to scare you.

Despite this surfeit of talent, “Mimic” stinks because the filmmakers wait too long to flush out the bugs. They waste over forty-five minutes setting up the story before our heroes descend into the subway tunnels. Of course, you can guess when who is going to die, so predictability paralyzes the story. Worse than that is that director Guillermo Del Toro rarely conjures up anything that remotely terrifies. There are too few instances when you want to jump because something on screen shocked you. The scene where the huge roach scoops up Mira Sorvino and swoops off with her is hilarious. It’s like those silent movies where the eagle carries the hero off to its nest. Del Toro is good at showing us lots of yucky bug slime and the bugs themselves. Most of the movie is shot in darkness so that you cannot see the bugs until the movie is half-way over. As for the bugs, the cockroaches in “Joe’s Apartment” were more fun. “Mimic’s” villainous bugs simply don’t look as murderous as either an alien or as creepy as an anaconda, even when one crawls over one of our heroes. When these buggers run, they resemble the raptors from “The Lost World,” but they are far less tenacious or terrifying.

Nothing in this handsomely produced insect epic will peg your blood pressure. A good cast is wasted, especially F. Murray Abraham, and we care so little about these one dimensional characters that when they begin to drop like flies, who cares. The filmmakers ignore whatever potential that they might have stirred up by having bodacious Mira Sorvino strip-tease a la Sigourney Weaver and lure the roaches to their demise. Charles Dutton’s subway cop comes closest to enlisting our sympathies because he gets to curse loudly and bug out his own eyes when he sees the giant insects. There’s an expendable subplot, too, about a small boy who gets lost in the tunnels and befriends the bugs. Skip this bugger. Mexican writer-director Guillermo Del Toro may have breathed new life into the vampire genre with his 1992 masterpiece “Cronos,” but “Mimic” is nothing but a load of bull!

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3"

As the second remake of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," the latest version starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta manages to be a slick and suspenseful white-knuckler. Nevertheless, this glossy new epic with its numerous narrative changes doesn't surpass director Joseph Sargent's 1974 original that toplined Walter Matthau & Robert Shaw. "Top Gun" director Tony Scott and Oscar-winning "L.A. Confidential" scenarist Brian Helgeland have cherry picked scenes and ideas from both author John Godey's bestselling novel and Sargent's original. Sadly, Scott and Helgeland have altered irreparably the characters of hero and villain in the name of political correctness. Not only have they changed the hero from a Transit Authority lieutenant to a corrupt subway employee, but they have also altered the villain from an out-of-work mercenary to a sleazy Wall Street crook.

Furthermore, the second remake of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" (**1/2 out of ****) suffers from a dire lack of credibility. Denzel Washington's last minute transformation from a non-violent subway dispatcher to a gun-toting crusader who can commandeer a vehicle so he can pursue the villain isn't persuasive enough to pass muster. Additionally, the new technology that the film features is marginal when you consider either what Scott and Helgeland have omitted or ignored as solid story elements. Mind you, Scott generates more than enough tension to make you put you on the edge of yours seat while the villains hold hostages, but the surprises are few and far between in this R-rated actioneer. Consequently, we have a tainted hero who isn't a professional like Walter Matthau's Transit Cop in the original. Incidentally, I missed the 1989 made-for-TV remake with "Miami Vice" star James Edward Olmos. Anyway, an ordinary guy is now the hero, while the villain is an egotistical lout. Happily, actor John Travolta delivers a strong, wholly believable performance as the unhinged maniac who planned this hijacking.

As Garber's murderous adversary, Ryder (John Travolta) is two weeks out of prison with a tattoo on his neck, a bandit mustache, and a willingness to blow the brains out of hostages at point blank range. He is an ex-Wall Street broker who tampered with the city of New York's pension fund, and he is using the hijacking incident to play the stock market for bigger gains. Helgeland has concocted some good ideas, such as Ryder's stock market scheme, but he has provided some bad things, too. For example, heroic subway dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington of "Man on Fire") is suspected of accepting a $35-thousand dollar bribe during a business trip to Japan and has been demoted. The day that Ryder (John Travolta of "Wild Hogs") occupies the eponymous subway train with his three fellow conspirators and demands $10-million from NYC, Garber is working as the dispatcher. Ryder contacts him and makes his demands. When Garber's supervisor relieves him, Ryder threatens to kill a hostage if they don't recall Garber. Ryder simply doesn't trust anybody, but he believes Garber because the latter admitted that he took a bribe in the presence of eye-witnesses.

The villains, a quartet of submachine gun toting goons, hijack the subway train and stop it in the middle of a busy tunnel. They disconnect all the cars from the engine car and let the motorman and the passengers trudge back to the last platform. A cop tries to intervene as the transfer is going down, and the badguys riddle him with a hail of bullets. Now, the badguys hold the 17 passengers and the conductor from the first car, shut the power off to the tracks, and establish their own wireless access so that they can monitor the Internet as news about them develops in the city. During this interval, Ryder surfs the web and discovers that Garber has been accused of bribery.

One of Helgeland's bad ideas is a teenage passenger with a lap-top computer. When Ryder brings the subway train to a jarring halt, the computer flies out of the kid's hands and slides underneath the seats across the aisle from him. The kid can clearly see his idiotic girlfriend on the 16-inch monitor begging to know what has happened. Initially, after the train halts, the Internet connection between the kid and his girlfriend is disrupted. Later, after the villains establish power so that Ryder can monitor the stock market, the kid's lap-top comes back on-line. Eventually, the girlfriend arranges things up so that her boyfriend's computer is streaming live video from the train that apparently nobody else but the cops can view. Moreover, Ryder's cretinous cohorts patrol the aisle but cannot spot a lap-top computer with its glowing picture screen. Talk about a serious lapse in credibility! Naturally, everything above ground goes amok in New York City. The unhappy NYC mayor (James Gandolfini of "The Sopranos") rushes to the subway command center to assure Ryder that New York will pay the ransom. Incredibly, the city has a short length of time to count the cash and deliver by police couriers with motorcycle patrolmen blocking intersections across the city as the couriers race as breakneck speed. At one point, an accident occurs and the courier vehicle is smashed and sent flying off a bridge to crash into on-coming traffic in the lanes under the bridge!

Scott does a good job of ramping up the action and keeping things tense both above and below ground as Ryder's clock ticks to a dangerous deadline. Altogether, Scott's "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" isn't a bad movie, but it isn't half as good as Joseph Sargent's original nail-biter. Travolta makes a solid villain, unstable as all get-out, but Robert Shaw was better in the first film. If you haven't seen the 1974 original, then you don't know what you are missing. Prepare yourself for a great deal of profanity in "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" and several violent shoot-outs, especially one street shoot-out where two men perish in a barrage of gunfire.