One of this year’s biggest disappointments
Mickey 17 is marketed as a mind-bending sci-fi thriller and with a talented cast, the visionary Bong Joon-ho writing and Directing, as well as a lavish production budget, this one had all the ingredients to be an absolute gem. Unfortunately, a lackluster script, chaotic tones, and a story that meanders far too early in its 2-hour run time lead to one of this year’s biggest disappointments.
Mickey 17 is, at its most basic level, an adaptation of Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel, Mickey 7. Here, we get a glimpse of a dystopian world where our eponymous character, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), is an unfortunate Earthling who does not read the fine print on contracts and qualifies as an “Expendable”.
Let us backtrack a bit; the setting encompasses a neo-noir, not too distant future, where Mickey and his friend Timo have come to blows with life after a business venture of theirs went south. They are being hunted down by loan sharks who are after their missed repayments and are in dire need of a solution, which unfortunately involves signing on as crew for a spaceship heading to a place far off known as Niflheim. Timo seems to be doing fine for himself and has landed a nice spot as a shuttle pilot, but luck does not shine on Mickey.
As an Expendable, his title offers little more than a death sentence. The crew’s job offer entails cloning him with technology deemed illegal on Earth, shattering and reconstructing his memories only to set him loose in perilous environments and simulated scenarios to see how far he can be pushed.
The movie starts with Mickey getting into one misadventure after another, a fair bit of exposition tagging along venting out what his reality is and why it is a horrible place to be stuck in. Things take a sharp left turn when he starts getting romantically involved with Nasha, the head of security.
Juggling this, Mickey’s mission goes wrong, and now two Mickeys are running about. Simultaneous clones, each with very distinct traits. Together, they end up getting wrapped up in an intergalactic conspiracy on the ship that has rotating mechanisms of our Captain Kenneth the Megalomaniac (spoilers of him later) and corporate spying. Until, of course, the middle of the movie where the main plot thrusts very hard into colonizers VS colonized and the cost of capitalism interlaced with ethics and our future as humanity put in for flavor.
In capstone and Bong Joon-ho’s directorial body of work, this is unfortunately where it also feels like blunt force trauma. If I may borrow the words of Joss Whedon: “there’s no nuance here.” And that is emphasized nowhere else more than in Ruffalo’s campy metatextual performance that can only be described as Captain Kenneth Trump.
You don’t have to worry about me getting political, as Mickey 17 has done enough of that for all of us. The film is not subtle with its attempts at sending a message, especially with Kenneth’s followers wearing red hats and acting as zealots with a lower IQ relative to people who don’t subscribe to Kenneth’s ideologies. They’re very blunt and clear about it, and while I do appreciate that this is a satire, the off-kilter tone is detrimental to this film trying to showcase that concept.
So, what we have here is a movie that is not serious enough to pass as a dystopian adventure, nor does it contain enough humor to be satirical. This middle ground means that Mickey 17 will most likely divide viewers into two categories — lovers or haters.
The movie also has a third act that feels rushed, and leaves many questions unanswered. One of the most jarring ones is about the clones. Why are some of the clones more aggressive than the others if they all have the same implanted memories and experiences? Why can Pattison’s clone remember his past deaths if the clone only contains memories from before death? There is also mention of a “superior race” at some point, which, of course, ties into the cloning project, but that is never elaborated on later.
To give credit where it’s due, the movie isn’t subtle or intricate either. And unfortunately, this extends to the characters as well. There are so many one-dimensional characters that it becomes painful to sit through the movie. Kenneth and his wife exist as one-dimensional villains who lack any compelling reasoning behind their evilness. Unsurprisingly, Kenneth constantly requires his wife’s assistance because she is the cunning one.
As far as Nasha goes, she remains in the background as just Mickey’s girlfriend until the final moments of the film, where, for some reason,n she decides to embody the girl boss stereotype without sufficient reasoning or build-up to this change.
Mickey 17, however, is captivating to look at. The 180 million dollar budget is evident in the breathtaking frozen landscapes, impressive computer-generated imagery, and elaborate set design for the spaces below deck. Unfortunately, none of the funding made its way to the writing department.
In the end, Mickey 17 is an oddly dystopian experience devoid of the excitement needed to avoid being a lackluster, tonally unbalanced failure. Moreover, the film lacks any rewatch value, and the exhaustion and annoyance of watching the tired socio-political commentary make the film feel outdated.
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