The Last Mimzy

The Last Mimzy
US Promotional poster
Directed by	Robert Shaye
Produced by	Michael Phillips
Screenplay by	Bruce Joel Rubin Toby Emmerich James V. Hart Carol Skilken
Based on	"Mimsy Were the Borogoves"  by Henry Kuttner C.L. Moore
Starring	Rhiannon Leigh Wryn Chris O'Neil Rainn Wilson Joely Richardson Timothy Hutton Michael Clarke Duncan Kathryn Hahn
Music by	Howard Shore Roger Waters
Cinematography	J. Michael Muro
Editing by	Alan Heim
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	March 23, 2007 (2007-03-23)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$27,297,4512

The Last Mimzy is a 2007 science fiction adventure drama film directed by Robert Shaye and loosely adapted from the 1943 science fiction short story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett (the pseudonym of husband and wife team Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore). The film features an ensemble cast that includes Timothy Hutton, Joely Richardson, Rainn Wilson, Kathryn Hahn, Michael Clarke Duncan, and introducing Rhiannon Leigh Wryn and Chris O’Neil as Emma and Noah.

Plot

Presented as a memory flashback by a woman named Lena, The Last Mimzy is the story of a distant future's attempt to avert a catastrophic ecological disaster that has destroyed their world. High tech devices, masquerading as toys, are sent back in time into the hands of Noah and Emma, two children who live with their parents Jo (Joely Richardson) and David (Timothy Hutton) in early 21st century Seattle. The "toys" are mostly incomprehensible to Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) and Noah (Chris O'Neil), except for what appears to be a stuffed rabbit named Mimzy. Sensing the strangeness of the devices, the children initially keep their discovery a secret from their parents.

Interaction with the devices causes the children to develop unusually advanced intelligence and other psychic/psionic abilities, which include empathy, telepathy, levitation, telekinesis, realize the mandala, short-distance teleportation, and the ability to telepathically communicate with arthropods (bugs). Emma becomes empathically, telepathically attached to Mimzy, from which she learns how to further operate the devices. Because of her psychic connection with Mimzy, Emma's development of her unique abilities are much stronger than her older brother's, being the only one of the siblings to display an abnormal increase in intelligence and brain activity, empathy, telekinesis, foresight, levitation, precognition, teleportation, and telepathy (though Noah can also mentally communicate with her once she has telepathically contacted him). Emma is also the only one who can use the Spinners, strange spinning, telekinetically floating rocks that produce a visible force-field. Noah's abilities are increased intelligence, empathic communication with arthropods, and telepathy (before the blackout, he can also use one of the toys to teleport objects after staring at it, and then observing his surroundings, but it is assumed he can no longer perform this ability after the toy fuses with another of the objects). At one point, Noah seems somewhat envious of his sister's prowess, but she reveals to him that even though she is the Chosen One, he is her Engineer and she cannot "build the bridge to the future" without him. The children's unusual psionic and mental abilities and Emma's obsessive attachment to Mimzy soon alert their parents and schoolteachers to the devices; later, a power black-out of half of the state of Washington caused by the toys alerts the FBI to their activities as well. The family is held for questioning by Special Agent Nathaniel Broadman (Michael Clarke Duncan), and it is revealed that Mimzy is actually a highly advanced form of artificial life utilizing nanotechnology created by Intel. Mimzy has brought a message from humanity's distant future, which Emma explains to mean that pollution has corrupted humanity's DNA. Many rabbits like Mimzy were sent to the past, but none had successfully returned; Mimzy is the last one remaining. The reason for the other Mimzys' deaths is revealed to be because the Chosen Ones before Emma had no Engineers (like Noah) to help build the bridge across time and they were too afraid to attempt it. Mimzy explains to the children that they must use the toys as a time machine to return her to the future with uncorrupted 21st century human DNA, which the people of the future can use to correct the damage to their DNA caused by the ecological problems.

Despite attempts by an unbelieving FBI to hinder them, Noah and Emma use their unusually strong psionic abilities to escape with Mimzy and the other objects and are able to activate the time portal by which Mimzy can return to the future. Fortunately, Mimzy carries with her a tear of Emma's, thus providing the pure DNA required to prevent the disaster. Emma is almost sucked into the future with Mimzy, but Noah grabs Emma's foot and pulls out just as Mimzy is sent to her own time. In the new distant future, Emma is revered as the "mother" of all the present generations, and the children and teacher who narrated the movie exhibit the same telekinetic talents and gifts that Emma had developed on a much stronger power-level. The world has become a more beautiful place, where it is presumed that humanity has integrated better into the constructed ecosystems. The story ends with Emma's teacher (Julia Arkos) calling on Emma in class, asking what she did over the break. Emma simply smiles.

Cast

• Rhiannon Leigh Wryn as Emma Wilder, who discovers the "toys".
• Chris O'Neil as Noah Wilder, Emma's elder brother.
• Timothy Hutton as David Wilder, father of Noah and Emma
• Joely Richardson as Jo Wilder, David's wife and mother of the children.
• Rainn Wilson as Larry White, Noah's science teacher.
• Kathryn Hahn as Naomi Schwartz, Larry's fiancee.
• Michael Clarke Duncan as FBI Special Agent Nathaniel Broadman.
• Patrick Gilmore as FBI Task Force Agent.
• Kirsten Williamson as Sheila Broadman, Broadman's wife.
• Marc Musso as Harry Jones, Noah's best friend.
• Megan McKinnon as Wendy.
• Irene Snow as Lena, the story's narrator.

Well-known string theorist Brian Greene has a cameo appearance as an Intel scientist.

Development and production

The Last Mimzy is loosely based on the classic science fiction short story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett, the pen name of collaborators Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore; the story appeared in John W. Campbell's magazine Astounding in 1943. Both the film's and short story's titles are derived from third line of the nonsense verse poem Jabberwocky in Lewis Carroll's novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. The adapted screenplay is by Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost, Deep Impact) and Toby Emmerich (Frequency). The film’s production team also included editor Alan Heim (All That Jazz, The Notebook) and sound designer Dane Davis (The Matrix). Visual effects were created by The Orphanage, and location filming was done in Roberts Creek and Collingwood School.

Reception

Critical response to The Last Mimzy was mixed, where it was ranged from saying it holds appeal for family audiences – especially children – to describing the storyline as distracting. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 53% approval rating saying "The Last Mimzy makes efforts to be a fun children's movie, but unsuccessfully juggles too many genres and subplots -- eventually settling as an unfocused, slightly dull affair"."

Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times called it, "Wholesome, eager entertainment that doesn't talk down", agreeing with Ken Fox of TV Guide's Movie Guide who said it was "a thoughtful and sincere interpretation that actually get kids and their guardians thinking and talking." Calling the film "lightweight", the Atlanta Journal-Constitution rated it a "small gem".The Chicago Sun-Times went as far as to say The Last Mimzy is an "emotionless empty shell" compared to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Critics diverge about the scientific validity of the film. Reviewer Susan Granger said, "There’s some validity to the challenging science depicted in the film, according to Dr. Brian Greene, Columbia University physics professor, and Dr. Susan Smalley, UCLA neurobehavioral genetics professor"; by contrast, Rick Norwood (The SF Site) writes, "The Last Mimzy has carefully expunged all of the ideas from the story, and replaced them with the New Age nonsense that passes for ideas these days. They have also taken a very personal story about one family and a box of toys from the future and turned it into an epic story in which childlike innocence saves the human race".

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for the film was composed by Howard Shore, the award winning composer behind the scores of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters also collaborated on a song called "Hello (I Love You)". "I think together we've come up with a song that captures the themes of the movie – the clash between humanity's best and worst instincts, and how a child's innocence can win the day", Roger Waters commented.

Track listing

1. "The Mandala" – 1:37
2. "Whidbey Island" – 3:21
3. "Under the Bed" – 2:46
4. "Cuddle" – 1:28
5. "Beach" – 1:59
6. "Scribbles" – 2:39
7. "Blackout" – 3:17
8. "Palm Readings" – 4:12
9. "I Love the World" – 0:52
10. "Help!" – 1:20
11. "I Have to Look" – 4:20
12. "Can I Talk?" – 5:26
13. "Eyes" – 2:15
14. "The Tear" – 4:07
15. "Through the Looking-Glass" – 5:03
16. "Hello (I Love You)" (with Roger Waters) – 6:16

Awards

Award	Category	Nominee	Result
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films	Best Performance by a Young Actor	Rhiannon Leigh Wryn	Nominated
	Best Science Fiction Film		Nominated
29th Young Artist Awards	Best Family Feature Film		Nominated
	Best Performance by a Leading Young Actor	Chris O'Neil	Nominated
	Best Performance by a Young Actress	Rhiannon Leigh Wryn	Nominated
	Best Performance by a Young Ensemble Cast	Chris O'Neil Rhiannon Leigh Wryn Marc Musso Megan McKinnon Nicole Muñoz	Nominated

External links

• Official website
• The Last Mimzy at Box Office Mojo
• The Last Mimzy at the Internet Movie Database
• The Last Mimzy at Metacritic
• The Last Mimzy at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Last Mimzy at AllRovi
• Online at Scribd Mimsy were the borogoves Lewis Padgett