Movie Review

Friday was Girls' Night for my daugther and I (and Boys' Night for the men of the family). So we decided to go to dinner and a movie. With a lack of movies for the younger kids, we haven't been in awhile and even so had only three to choose from....Bridge to Teribithia, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (like we really needed a remake of that one), and, our selection, The Last Mimzy.

Here is our review...

The Last Mimzy (New Line Cinema, 90 mins)

I went into this movie with no expectations and no idea what it was about...except possibly a bunny. So, for the first 45 minutes or so I was anxiously waiting for the numerous elements to come together and create the main issue at hand...saving the human race that has apparently been almost destroyed by too much toying with DNA. It starts in the future with what appears to be a storytime for a group of young children. Then we are sent back to the past...current day. We meet a family with an absent father (Timothy Hutton), mother (Joely Richardson) and two kids, Noah (Chris O'Neill) and Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn). The kids find a box of odd and disconnected objects in a strange box on the beach while on vacation. These objects end up giving the children amazing powers that cause several problems in their lives including a major blackout that gains the attention of Homeland Security. In the end, with the help of Noah's science teacher (Rainn Wilson), they save the human race for several hundreds of generations.

Besides the poor acting all around (except Rainn Wilson...in a great departure from his signature role on the Office), the story has so much going on, that it never really comes together. My daughter left very confused and needed a couple explanations before she understood it all. Although the basic message of the movie is good...stop polluting and playing with DNA, which is stated by Wilson early on, it gets lost in the shuffle. There are some references to Alice in Wonderland and later Adam and Eve, but kids will not see them. The movie is slow and wordy...oppose the visual plotlines that I am used to in the animated set. I was disappointed that some character development gets brushed off after introduction (e.g. Noah's feelings of pre-teen worthlessness, a father who is losing touch with his family, a pair of siblings that find something to bond over). The humor in the movie was completely lost in the audience I sat with. It was clear where they has put in some laughs and jokes but no one laughed at them. There is also a somewhat frightening encounter with Homeland Security that may frighten some kids and provoke some questions about government being able to barge in on a family.

My daughter gave it a 6.9 out of 10. She liked the story, once she understood it. The special effects were cool, she said. She said it wasn't funny and the acting wasn't that good (she did a good impression of the Emma character).

Overall, this movie was ok. I would not recommend spending any money on it...wait for the library, if your older kids want to see it. I recommend it for kids 10 years and over.