This movie is better than it had any right to be considering how much the studio interfered with Guillermo Del Toro as he was directing it. Supposedly, the Weinstein’s were constantly on set hassling Del Toro, making ridiculous & sometimes bizarre requests on a daily basis. It got so bad that Del Toro ended up disowning the film upon its release. Later, he was able to come back and put together a director’s cut (although much of the footage from his original vision was didn’t exist) so although the director’s cut is better than the theatrical version, we’ll never see the original vision.
At its heart, Mimic is a creature horror flick, an update on the 1960’s formula of giant bug monsters terrorizing a city. The bug designs are actually pretty cool and most of the CG looks better than you’d expect for a late 90’s film. The story is passable with equally passable performances. It’s not Del Toro’s best but it’s actually one of the better giant bug films (admittedly a limited genre).