New Line Cinema honcho Robert Shaye makes a rare appearance in the director's chair (...) bringing the well-regarded short story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" to the big screen as the family-friendly fantasy THE LAST MIMZY. In the process, the Lewis Padgett piece, first published in a 1943 science-fiction collection, has been turned into a reasonably engaging movie filled with fun visual effects and an appealing tone reminiscent of a certain Spielberg movie about an out-of-his-element extraterrestrial. (...) Despite the spelling change, screenwriters Bruce Joel Rubin (GHOST) and Toby Emmerich (FREQUENCY) are unlikely to offend many purists in their update of the original work, about a box of educational toys that have been sent back from the future to the present. The original title took its cue from a line in Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky."

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LA DERNIÈRE MIMZY est adapté de Mimsy Were the Borogoves, une nouvelle de science-fiction de Henry Kuttner très cérébrale qui, bien qu'à propos d'enfants qui découvrent une boîte de jouets futuristes, semble peu propice à être transformée en un conte familial (...). LA DERNIÈRE MIMZY emprunte la trame narrative et sentimentale d'E.T., alors que l'oeuvre originale suggère plutôt quelque chose comme RENCONTRE DU TROISIÈME TYPE. Le résultat est un film aux thèmes fascinants mais au récit convenu. Aussi, l'inclusion d'éléments mystiques est maladroite. Le film aurait dû s'en tenir aux progrès de la science anticipés par Kuttner (...).

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The story, adapted from Lewis Padgett's "All Mimsy Were the Borogroves" (...) concerns two ordinary children drawn into extraordinary adventures at their Seattle summer home by the arrival of a curious black box. Inscribed with obscure symbols, it makes noises like a whale and contains a large, blue, glass snail; an ornate, encrusted sea shell; and an antique-looking stuffed rabbit. The last of these is Mimzy, an emissary from the future who speaks in a strange language and must return to her time with something to rescue humanity from pollution and disease. (...) Problem is, not a lot of this is connected with the main mission in the story. From the mandala-like field of flowers that opens the film to the various themes of telepathy, palm reading, levitation, crystals and time travel, Shaye offers a catalog of alternative spirituality, a few raps at the Patriot Act (...) and the general message that the world is warming, ailing and on the way out. But there are too many distracting elements to allow a viewer total immersion in the story.

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