The well-deserved hat trick that director Bong Joon Ho pulled off on the Oscars in 2020 with Parasite all however ensured that studios would battle tooth and nail to again his subsequent cinematic mission. It was all the time going to be troublesome for Bong to prime what he achieved with Parasite — a shapeshifting masterpiece of storytelling that spoke to the the meticulousness of his artistic course of — but it surely was exhausting to not sit up for his follow-up after such a robust story.
Though Mickey 17 bears lots of the narrative and stylistic hallmarks Bong has turn out to be recognized for, the movie is shakier than a lot of his earlier work. There is an intentional (however not all the time efficient) sweatiness to a few of the darkish comedy’s lead performances that takes a few of the chunk out of its social commentary. But contemplating the cartoonishly unhinged political local weather we’re all residing by way of proper now, Mickey 17 additionally seems like a movie that’s assembly the second and articulating what’s on a lot of our minds.
Adapted from Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey 7, Mickey 17 tells the story of Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), a form simpleton of a person whose iffy enterprise dealings power him to run for his life. When Mickey and his finest bud Timo’s (Steven Yeun) plan to open a bakery falls flat, they know that the sadistic mortgage shark they owe cash to received’t suppose twice about murdering them. And in Mickey 17’s imaginative and prescient of the longer term, Earth has turn out to be so ravaged by catastrophic climate situations that there aren’t that many locations they will conceal.
The local weather is so unstable that many individuals have come round on disgraced politician Kenneth Marshall’s (Mark Ruffalo) plan to depart Earth with a view to colonize different worlds. Unlike Timo, Mickey doesn’t have any specialised expertise or connections that will make him a perfect candidate for Marshall’s voyage. But his willingness to enroll to turn out to be an expendable — a menial employee who will get cloned each time they die on the job — with out studying the fantastic print is all it takes to safe him a spot and, seemingly, a path to security.
Though there’s a dreary, near-apocalyptic grimness to the world round Mickey once we first meet him, Pattinson leans right into a charmingly slackjawed goofiness along with his efficiency that makes it clear how comedic Bong intends for Mickey 17 to play. Mickey, whose whiny have an effect on makes it appear a bit like Pattinson is riffing on points of Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock, isn’t fully a guileless Pollyanna. Once he’s aboard the ship, Mickey can sense that there’s one thing very off about Marshall’s uncooked meat-obsessed spouse Ylfa (Toni Collette) and his conniving yes-man Preston (Daniel Henshall). Mickey is aware of that Marshall — who reads like a mix of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Bryan Johnson — sees expendables as subhuman beings whose solely worth is within the labor they will do to understand his objectives.
In Mickey’s case, that labor ranges from doing menial duties inside the ship to being despatched outdoors it and ordered to take off his swimsuit and provides himself deadly radiation poisoning. There’s additionally a good quantity of lethal trial and error as soon as the ship reaches the planet Nilfheim and Marshall’s scientists have to make use of Mickey to develop a vaccine to guard everybody from alien viruses. But regardless of what number of instances Mickey is tasked with jobs that kill him, his 3D-printed clones all the time get up figuring out that safety officer Nasha Barridge (Naomi Ackie) will probably be there with a smile on her face and plans for them to sneak off for some unsanctioned sexual launch.
Mickey 17’s horniness and its moments of gore each underline that, on one degree, it’s a movie about folks coping with the true challenges that will include deep house exploration. The giddy playfulness of Ackie and Pattinson’s romantic scenes speaks to how the hope their relationship provides them is a uncommon and treasured feeling.
Even although they’re performed for laughs, every of Mickey’s grotesque deaths work to strengthen how harmful colonizing one other planet could be and the way the endeavor wouldn’t be doable with out folks believing in fundamental science. But every time Mickey is resurrected by the use of an enormous 3D printer that always plops him out onto the ground, you possibly can really feel Bong’s humorousness shining by way of.
It’s additionally clear that Bong intends for Mickey 17 to depart you chuckling in moments when it’s targeted on Marshall hamming it up for his red-hat sporting followers or pontificating to his employees as Ylfa flits round him like a deranged hummingbird. Though Collette’s efficiency is delightfully batshit — Ylfa’s all the time popping up with a blender attempting to power folks to strive unusual sauces she’s concocted — Ruffalo’s Marshall grows more and more exhausting to observe because the movie progresses. That vitality is clearly intentional to some extent and comprehensible due to how Marshall is outlined by his propensity for self-aggrandizement and throwing tantrums.
Warner Bros.
Especially when Ruffalo’s spitting out traces by way of chunky prosthetic tooth spiritually (however not aesthetically) evocative of the set Tilda Swinton wore in Bong’s Snowpiercer, Marshall seems like Mickey 17’s clearest articulation of how egotistical billionaires who see themselves as saviors are usually assholes who shouldn’t be trusted. But Ruffalo goes so huge along with his efficiency that it typically seems like he’s appearing in a special, extra absurd film.
Things begin to really feel even zanier when the seventeenth Mickey appears to die on Nilfheim’s floor, solely to seek out his manner again to the landed ship chilly, however very a lot alive. The manner the film — which was greenlit earlier than Ashton’s novel was revealed, and primarily based on early drafts of the e book — glosses over how he doesn’t freeze to demise is likely one of the first indicators of how wobbly the story winds up getting. But the movie wants that beat to introduce Mickey 18 and the troubles that ensue when two expendables exist on the similar time.
While Mickey 17 makes use of its two Mickeys to discover some enjoyable, however not all that novel, concepts about what cloning expertise would imply for society, the movie begins to lose its footing because it pulls the pair into uneven plotlines. The duo have their very own existential baggage to take care of as they fight to determine why 18 is a lot extra aggressive and reactive than his twin. But in addition they have private scores to settle with Timo. Then there’s the matter of working by way of an emotional tough patch with Nasha and ensuring that different folks on the ship don’t understand that there are two of them.
Bong does a serviceable job of conserving all these plates spinning, however they don’t fairly steadiness in a manner that makes Mickey 17 really feel like his finest outing. But that total messiness can be a part of what makes the film — together with its central message in regards to the accountability employees need to worth themselves — stand out as a wonderfully timed story to this present second, regardless of being set within the far future.
Mickey 17 additionally stars Holliday Grainger, Anamaria Vartolomei, Cameron Britton, Patsy Ferran, Angus Imrie, Steve Park, and Tim Key. The movie is now’s theaters.
