It's an odd feeling, watching a movie and seeing that it is a compromised version of itself during the theatrical experience. Such as the case of Mimics, the killer dummy movie directed by and starring Kristoffer Polaha. All throughout you can see what the movie wanted to be, but for whatever reason - time constraints? budget? a forced PG-13 rating? - it doesn't quite deliver what it seems to want to show the audience.
But I get ahead of myself: Mimics is the story of Sam Reinhold (Polaha), an aspiring comic whose main schtick is to do voice impressions while also using a puppet on stage. He gets signed by a mysterious agency with the condition that he use a ventriloquist dummy. He quickly discovers that it is more than just a dummy, but ignores it as fame and fortune come his way. His grandfather Melvin (Stephen Tobolowsky) and love interest Virginia (Moriah) notice something is wrong and try to help.
Now, to give the clearest example of how the movie obviously wants to be something other than what it is, I'll use the least spoiler-y but accurate example. It is very quickly implied that the dummy is more than a dummy and that it can move and act on its own. We even get an extended kill sequence where it shows us the dummy is the one committing the acts. And that is the only scene in the entire film where we see the dummy behaving in such a way.
Other characters die, but it's either a weirdly implied death (we do not see anything other than the character dying, and it is just as weird as it sounds) or it reads as more 'cursed object' than malevolence from the dummy in question. It's a frustratingly incomplete movie in this regard - we are clearly supposed to think the dummy is doing everything, so why so much coyness after we have already seen it in action?
The movie also explains-but-not-really the agency that hires him (and it is implied, did so before and will continue to do so after) and forces him to use the dummy. There's mythology there - mostly discovered by Virginia - but it never fully connects the dots nor explains what the agency gets out of signing these stand up acts. It's as if the film is missing 2 or 3 pages of exposition spread throughout the running time.
The movie is also personally hard for me to watch, as it features bad-but-they-are-trying stand up (which is uncomfortable to watch) and then later with mean-spirited stand up (which is even more uncomfortable to watch). Polaha does a good job in his portrayal, which made me that much more anxious while watching the movie.
Of the other main performances, special mention must be given to Tobolowsky who gives a performance at least two levels higher than this film even asked for, made all the more surprising given that I mostly know him for his comedic work. Chris Parnell has a fun slightly-larger-than-cameo performance as a late night host, but Tobolowsky stands out as best in show by a mile.
Which isn't to say anyone is bad - I don't think any of the performances miss the mark - it's just that none of them really stand out.
And that really summarizes the film as a whole. Not too bad, not too great, but ultimately forgettable. It doesn't have the necessary camp that it needs to overcome the many shortcomings of its compromised story. I won't say I'd never recommend it, but it would never be my first choice.
5 out of 10
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