‘Mickey 17’ Review: As Bloated, Long, And Self-Indulgent As You Have Heard, And Maybe Worse
Mickey 17 is the latest sci-fi offering from Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho. It’s his biggest budget to date and his first (possibly last) collaboration with Robert Pattinson who is as close to a movie star as you’ll get in his generation. Between this pairing of talent and all the hype in the trades when its release date was set, I was curious.
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Before I (and seemingly most) knew it, the film was out and didn’t do so hot in its opening weekend despite noticeable anticipation in some circles. But how could that be? How could an original epic sci-fi concept from an Oscar winner on the rise in The West, starring one of the most in-demand actors today, misfire?
A lot of people have an explanation – from marketing to Mark Ruffalo – but I had to see for myself if any of them were true. Now that I have finally seen Mickey 17, I can say there’s not just validity to the criticism. This is a movie that has a cosmic level of issues.
First, the plot: Pattinson plays Mickey Barnes, a loser and failed macaron entrepreneur who signs his life away as an “expendable” on a space mission to escape a debt to a voyeuristic mobster. (Yes, you read that right.) Yet he doesn’t read the fine print and becomes a guinea pig whose existence is a cycle of live, die (brutally), clone, repeat.
This process takes four years and one day in the big ship’s cafeteria, he lays eyes on security agent Nasha (Naomi Ackie) and pretty soon the two begin shacking up covertly. They have fun up until Mickey, now on his 17th copy, and his love life are turned upside down by his duties. An accidental fall through ice on a distant planet makes him collateral damage.
He’s saved by giant intelligent potato bug-looking lifeforms, but the space colony scientists print out a new him anyway. This one makes 18 and he is much crazier and more murderous than number 17. Worse, since the two coexist, they are in danger of being punished for a “multiples violation” by the sinister egomaniac, Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo), who leads the expedition and has big plans for the developing colony.
Lots is going on here for one movie, so where to begin? I’ll start by saying Pattinson is pretty good in his dueling performances. He’s not quite Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers, but he does his best to give genetically identical individuals distinct personalities. Mickey 17 is a bumbling loser while 18 is meaner, more grown-up mentally, and much more reactionary.
The plot is much more interesting and entertaining when it follows the Mickeys, but like a child with a case of ADHD, the focus doesn’t stay on one thing for very long. Things detour and force us to put up with a jumble of elements. The worst is Ruffalo’s Marshall character who is in more of the film than he has to be. Half his scenes could be cut and we’d lose nothing of value.
Since you are probably wondering, yes, he is a Trump caricature and a pretty bland one. How much of that is what Ruffalo brings to the table or the way Bong Joon-ho wrote him is debatable, but the result is the same. Marshall is presented as a man of the people with a cult-like red hat-wearing following when secretly he is a wannabe fascist leader of a company/church looking for a “pure, white” restart for mankind.
He also has a show and a PR team like a politician or televangelist would, which irks Mickey 18. The latter grows obsessed with assassinating him, and eventually, he succeeds, averting the mutually assured destruction of both humans and the indigenous life forms known as Creepers. Marshall is then replaced by Nasha, a woman of color, as the colonial administrator. You get the drift.
Even if you don’t care about that, Mickey 17 will test your patience because it commits one of the cardinal sins of cinema. At 137 minutes and as padded as its story is, it’s long and you start to feel it after a while. There’s a tendency to drag and Bong doesn’t know when to wrap things up or cut to the chase.
You can chalk that up to the auteur’s ego, but there’s also a cultural factor. Storytelling differs in the East and doesn’t always translate to a global audience. This is one of those times.
Mickey 17
PROS
- Robert Pattinson going all 'Swiss Army Man.'
- Visual effects and overall designs of sets and landscapes
CONS
- Length: you could cut a half hour or so off this film and it wouldn't make any difference
- Trump-deranged Ruffalo (and his distracting teeth) is at best miscast in a role better suited to Nic Cage
- Bong Joon-ho attempts to channel Paul Verhoeven's brand of satire and cultural commentary, but his space mission doesn't land like 'Starship Troopers.'
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