Mimic on PAL Laserdisc

• Cat.no: PLFEB 37571
• Cert: 15
• Running time: 102 minutes
• Sides: 2 (CLV)
• Year: 1997
• Pressing: 1998
• Chapters: 14 (6/8)
• Sound: Dolby Surround
• Widescreen: 1.85:1
• Price: £19.99
• Extras : Original Trailer (uncredited)
  

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  Director:

  Guillermo Del Toro

Cast:

Mira Sorvino
Charles S.Dutton
Jeremy Northam
Josh Brolin
Giancarlo Giannini
F. Murray Abraham

T o combat the deadly virus killing out a generation of New York children, insect expert Sorvino genetically engineers a superior bug – sterile and with only a six month lifespan – to decimate the population of bugs carrying the virus. This saves the city’s children – but, three years later, two street kids turn up with a cereal packet inside which is one of the six month old bugs. Worse, it’s a baby. And deep in the New York subway system is a whole colony of fearsome adult insects who mimic their worst enemy (man) in order to ultimately outnumber them and destroy them.

Anyone lucky enough to see this in the cinema will know that its was very dark – and almost inevitably, many of the subtler variations in darkness are gone by the time the movie hits video. That said, this PAL LD version ain’t bad: this is not the “almost impossible to see anything on video” darkness of The Relic and contains numerous underground scenes where the lighting proves more than adequate.

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro of Cronos fame, this being a U.S. production boasts a bigger budget and stars, but – to be brutally honest – neither Sorvino nor Northam bring much of value to the piece. Supporting players like Dutton (Alien3) as an officious Transit Authority cop and Giannini as a Mexican shoeshiner make no attempt at looking like stars and consequently fare much better. But the real high points are the director’s narrative skill, the truly awesome bug effects (as in your back yard variant of Alien/Starship Troopers) and the piece’s ability to generate moments of near pure horror and or revulsion.

The effects being so impressive, it’s a shame the disc isn’t in CAV – something from which the single frame rapid change title sequence imagery would also have benefited and (as often with Pioneer’s Buena Vista discs) the chaptering is nowhere near adequate (though, again, it’s pretty good from about the middle of side two).

The transfer, if sometimes dark, looks a pretty decent rendition of the source material. The sidebreak, however, is duff, coming (at 49m 47s) just after a tense underground scene with an abrupt end that badly interrupts the flow of the movie. The end (at 2m 24s) of the first scene on side two, during which Miss Sorvino disappears down a subway tunnel, would make a much better break. The last chapter starts seemingly reasonably enough at the start of the film’s credits – but then happily someone has decided to include, unannounced, a trailer on the end. A nice little bonus, but marking by an extra chapter stop would have been nicer still.

The sound is stunning, with passing trains as good as anything in Thelma And Louise. That said, if you liked the movie (and personally, I loved it!), this is a great purchase of a title all but discarded by its UK distributor which one had assumed unlikely to make PAL LD. At a mere £19.99, a real treat.

Film: 5/5
Picture: 4/5
Sound: 5/5