The Last Mimzy

A brother and sister find a mysterious box of unusual toys. As they play with the toys, magical things begin to happen. Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore’s classic 1943 science-fiction story “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” is prettified, simplified and adulterated into a gleaming piece of kiddie sci-fi, shoe-horned into the E.T. mold—with writers Bruce Joel Rubin, Toby Emmerich, James V. Hart and Carol Skilken tossing in a trendy anti-pollution theme that Kuttner and Moore neglected to include. The kids, Chris O’Neil and Rhiannon Leigh Wryn, are generically adorable (think Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore circa 1982), and they get able support from an adult cast of seasoned pros (Joely Richardson, Timothy Hutton, Michael Clarke Duncan, Kathryn Hahn, etc.). Bob Shaye’s direction is flatly functional.