Family Flix: The Last Mimzy

(Hi!  I'm on vacation.  This article is a repost from last Spring.  I'm reposting it because I liked this movie.  See ya next week!) 

I have something to tell you before we go any further.

As you know, faithful reader, all of the movies I discuss in this column are tested by my son, AEYOB. I ask for his participation because, after all, I’m old and I only know so much about what kids really like.

I brought him to see The Last Mimzy and I really thought he was going to enjoy it. I was wrong. Towards the end, children were screaming, helicopters were hovering, miracles were occurring and AEYOB turned to me and said:

“Mommy, I don’t want to watch this movie anymore. I want to go home. There’s a better movie on Cartoon Network at five o’clock anyway. Scooby Doo and the Loch Ness Monster.”

Now having said that, let me ask you this. What the heck does an Actual Eight-Year-Old Boy know anyway? This movie rocked.

The Last Mimzy is a fantasy/science fiction/feel-good movie about a young boy named Noah (Chris O’Neil) and his little sister Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn). Emma is cute and gifted. Noah is cute, but a little dorky and Doesn’t Apply Himself.

One day while on vacation Noah and Emma find a funky looking box in the ocean. The open it up and find some weird things, things such as rocks that levitate, a neon-flashing doohickey, and a stuffed rabbit named Mimzy. How do they know its name is Mimzy? Mimzy told them of course. Mimzy speaks in clicks and whistles.

Emma and Noah have a seriously laid back mom. She’s so laid back that she serves dinner on a perfectly set table with cloth napkins without blinking an eye (I hate her). She’s so laid back she listens to Pink Floyd. She’s so laid back…(HOW LAID BACK IS SHE???)…she’s so laid back that she doesn’t even notice the neon doohickey. She thinks it’s a paperweight. (GASP!).

Or, maybe she can’t really see it. Maybe only the kids can.

Things get spookier and spookier. After they find the box, Noah is no longer a mediocre student. He trains spiders to build bridges out of their webs for the science fair. He draws pictures that turn out to be ancient Hindu symbols. And Emma gets more and more attached to Mimzy, who seems to be able to predict the future. Mimzy is a little like Tony from The Shining. Only cuddly.

Add to the mix Dad (Timothy Hutton), who is also pretty laid back for an overworked lawyer, science teacher Larry White (Rainn Wilson) and his girlfriend Naomi. Larry and Naomi are very spiritual (Larry likes Pink Floyd too), and the two of them are the first to recognize that something very strange is happening with Noah.

I can’t tell you much more folks, I don’t want to be accused of being a spoiler. I will tell you that Mimzy is sure to satisfy your craving for fantasy and special effects. It also has what is possibly the best example of product placement I have ever seen (trust me). At it’s heart, Mimzy is really about a little girl who, despite the fact that she’s smart and independent, can’t get the job done without her big brother’s help. That’s what I loved most. That and the Roger Waters soundtrack. See, there was method to the whole Pink Floyd thing.

I tried to pin down what AEYOB didn’t like about the movie. As I said, there were spiders (he HATES spiders). There were also what appeared to be aliens, and he wasn’t crazy about that either. If you ask me I think the scenes with Homeland Security (ergo the helicopter) might have been a little ominous for the younger ones.

A word about Rainn Wilson. I adore him as Dwight in The Office, and I figured if he was in this movie it had to be great. I still love him, but I’m not sure if I like him out of character. (I saw him once on Bill Maher, and let’s just say I don’t think he’d notice the doohickey either).

The Last Mimzy is rated PG.

In theaters March 23.

Wendy R., Movie Correspondent:

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