The Last Mimzy with Timothy Hutton

An Uninspired Trip Down the Rabbit Hole

Hollywood loves a movie that can be easily characterized. So what to make of the hard to classify movie now in dollar theaters, The Last Mimzy?

Is it a family film? A brother-sister sci-fi buddy picture? An homage to Lewis Carroll? An aborted space odyssey? ET but with time-travel? A 90-minute Intel product placement? A reworking of the 1983 Matthew Broderick movie WarGames? An Al Gore eco-tract?

In fact, it’s too much of all those things and not enough of just one or two of them.

The movie stars two young unknowns Chris O’Neil and Rhiannon Leigh Wryn as a brother and sister who discover a curious box in the tidewater on a coastal Washington island near Seattle. Inside the box the children find everyday objects… including a stuffed rabbit named Mimzy… that impart powers to the children which startle their mother (Jolie Richardson) and the boy’s teacher (Rainn Wilson).

But when Mimzy begins to talk with the little girl and the objects seem to cause a huge power blackout in the Pacific Northwest, it seems as if the children have opened up Pandora’s Box.

The power failure introduces Michael Duncan Clark as a Homeland Security agent in charge of tracking down the source of the outage, and frankly he’s just awful in this role.

And the director Robert Shaye, best known as the executive producer of the Lord of the Rings movies, has an unsteady hand at the helm.

The script is by Toby Emmerich, who also wrote the Dennis Quaid thriller Frequency, and there are echoes of Frequency in Mimzy. Emmerich is head of production at New Line Cinema, which explains how this odd little film got made.

In Frequency, Emmerich wrote a very strong role for the father (Dennis Quaid). But not this time. Timothy Hutton, a fine actor, plays the father to the kids but there’s so little for him to work with in the script he comes off rather milquetoast.

Mimzy surprised a few critics. But for me it left me feeling glad I didn’t pay full fare.

My wife probably put it best: Mimzy was more often interesting than entertaining.

The Last Mimzy is rated PG for some thematic elements, mild peril and language.

DMR grades The Last Mimzy a B.




The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as a ‘thanks for trying’ attaboy. Because it was clean, The Last Mimzy was upgraded. Without the upgrade, I would have graded it as a B-.

Stranger than Fiction with Will Ferrell

Almost True to Life

Some neighbors just buried their tragically-disabled daughter after tending for her hand and foot her entire abbreviated life.

Friends care for their non-ambulatory, non-speaking (but precocious) five-year-old who was severely burned in an accident.

These are the kinds of real-life sacrifices that people make for people they love or care about. And self-sacrifice is the theme of the quirky and original movie Stranger Than Fiction.

The movie concerns Harold Crick (Will Ferrell)… a gray IRS agent living a paper thin slice of life… who begins to hear in his head a narration of his life’s events.

The effect, of course, is very disconcerting for Crick, especially after the narrator (Emma Thompson) says as Harold waits for the bus, “little did he know that this seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death.”

Crick goes to see a shrink (the woefully-underused Linda Hunt) who tells him that he’s schizophrenic and recommends a drug regimen.

But what if I really am hearing a narration, he asks, what would you suggest? She tells him to go see a literary specialist (Dustin Hoffman). Together they compile a list of likely authors. With imminent death hanging over him like a cloud, Crick’s life begins to take on some color as he rounds out his life, especially on the romantic front.

If this doesn’t sound like much of a movie, you’re right. Up until the last 10 minutes or so of the movie the depiction of Crick’s life seems so gray and ordinary you wonder if anything the filmmakers can do can possibly pay off.

The answer is yes. The climax is wonderfully moving and affecting. I’m going to own this movie.

Ferrell, believe it or not, brings nuance to the role. And the co-stars, which include Maggie Gyllenhaal (as Crick’s love interest) and Queen Latifah (as Thompson’s long-suffering assistant) are all quite good, Thompson especially so.

My only complaint is philosophical. The fact is, people make extraordinary daily sacrifices for others as a matter of course in the everyday lives. Everyone of us knows people like the ones I described above. Their sacrifice is so common it seems mundane. Crick’s act of sacrifice is spectacular, but momentary. But how would you depict people like my neighbors caring for their disabled child over a lifetime, whose devotion is so complete it seems ‘stranger than fiction’?

It may be impossible to make that movie. But I want desperately to one day see that harder, sadder, more meaningful, real, and joyful movie.

Stranger Than Fiction is rated PG-13 for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity.

DMR grades Stranger than Fiction as a B.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as a ‘thanks for trying’ attaboy. Stranger Than Fiction was downgraded a full grade because of all the elements that made it PG-13. Minus those elements I would have graded it as an A.