THE LAST MIMZY
  
STARRING: Rhiannon Leigh Wryn,
Chris O'Neil, Timothy Hutton, Joely Richardson, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rainn
Wilson, Kathryn Hahn
2007, 90 Minutes, Directed by:Bob Shaye
 An
enjoyable —
if slight —
tale about two kids (a ten-year-old brother and his younger sister) discovering
alien artifacts with miraculous powers on the beach one day.
The devices are benign in
nature and actually increases the boy’s IQ to genius levels. One of the
artefacts is a fluffy bunny toy that is actually an artificial intelligence of
sorts, which —
like E.T. —
has to go home if the day is to be saved. However when one of the alien devices
inadvertently cause a huge electricity blackout, it attracts the attention of a
neurotic government department who employs the Patriot Act to whisk the whole
typical nuclear American family away into captivity without so much as producing
a warrant.
The parents and authority
figures do not believe the kids and think the objects to be belligerent. Luckily
the kids are helped by a science teacher and his spouse, both of whom display an
alarming tendency to believe all kinds of New Age-y hokum.
It is doubtful whether small
children will be all that entranced by The Last Mimzy. The plot is a bit
too complicated and while the inert bunny is cute, there probably isn’t enough
action to keep their attention (a few BMX chases might have solved this
problem). Still, kids tend to identify with other kids
—
so who knows? The child actors in Last Mimzy acquit them admirably of
their tasks, especially Rhiannon Leigh Wryn as the girl who manages to be cute
without being gaggingly so.
The adults are OK even though
Timothy Hutton is woefully underutilized. The special effects and other
production values are decent too. The Howard Shore orchestral score mostly
manages to avoid the usual “wonderment” John Williams clichés typical of
Spielbergian projects such as this. As a bonus there is a self-referential and
upbeat Roger Waters (ex-lead singer of Punk Floyd) song that plays over the
credit title sequences – his first song in simply ages.
More could have been done with
the material though: perhaps creating more ambiguity whether the alien artifacts
are benign in nature would have resulted in more plot tension.
(Incidentally the movie is
based on a short story called "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett. Bruce
Joel Rubin and Toby Emmerich did the screenplay adaptation.)
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