“Mickey 17,” released in theaters on March 7th, is director Bong Joon Ho’s follow-up feature to his 2019 Best Picture-winner, “Parasite.” The highly-anticipated sci-fi black comedy plays with some intriguing ideas, but does not meet the lofty expectations set by its predecessor.
The film follows the story of a living science experiment in Mickey, played by Robert Pattinson. Mickey has died and been regenerated 16 times by a morally ambiguous space exploration organization, all for the ironic purpose of expanding the reaches of life on an alien planet. However, problems arise when “Mickey 17” survives a deadly scenario, and “Mickey 18” is brought into existence nonetheless.
The movie does a little with a lot, in just about every way possible. It sports a nearly 140 minute runtime, and has about 100 minutes worth of story. It rocks a fantastic cast, but has few, if any, particularly interesting characters. It sets up some theoretically funny scenarios, but fails to pay them off with anything super laugh-worthy. It’s not all bad, but it just feels incomplete in many ways.
The shining light here is undoubtedly Robert Pattinson’s sensational dual performance as Mickey 17 and 18. He does a fantastic job portraying two entirely different characters with the same face and body, and injects some emotion into this mostly underwhelming and sterile world. Watching him act opposite to himself is what carries a lot of this movie.
The biggest problem with “Mickey 17” is that it puts its obvious and unoriginal takes on modern politics ahead of immersing the audience in its story. The filmmakers never give the audience an opportunity to become invested in the world they are building without tackily pointing and winking through the screen with mind-numbingly on-the-nose visual metaphors and dialogue. Colonizers sporting red hats rallying around a controversial politician… hmm.
It’s not about what you say, just how you say it. What “Mickey 17” is saying is nothing original: colonization is wrong, politicians infringe on human rights for their own gain, etc. The audience is treated like elementary schoolers who need a teacher to hold their hand and walk them through these basic ideas being presented.
The aesthetic of the movie is disappointingly uncreative. For decades, sci-fi films have been stuck in the 1970’s vision of the future that has become stale and repetitive. This movie has scenes and locations straight out of the “Star Wars” series. Everything from the colonizer base to the Hoth-esque alien planet looks like a recycled sci-fi setting off the desk of George Lucas or James Cameron. The lack of originality is a trend throughout, and unfortunately does the movie no favors in setting it apart from the crowd.
“Mickey 17” was disappointing and unfulfilling for the most part, and didn’t leave a lot of deep ideas on the table. For such a deeply political movie, that’s a swing and a miss.
“The filmmakers never give the audience an opportunity to become invested in the world they are building without tackily pointing and winking through the screen with mind-numbingly on-the-nose visual metaphors and dialogue.”
Just fantastic writing. Thanks!