Mickey 17

by Mike McGranaghan

Mickey 17 is director Bong Joon-Ho’s follow-up to Parasite, but it has more in common with Okja than his Oscar-winning masterpiece. That is to say, it’s a crazy, off-the-rails comedic adventure rather than a nuanced social commentary. I’ll take a mediocre Bong Joon-ho film over the best film from a lot of directors. That’s unfortunately what this is, though. Maybe he felt the need to go in a very different direction after the Best Picture win. Whatever happened, a lack of storytelling restraint ultimately proves exhausting, despite a lot of individually good elements.

The story is set a few decades in the future. Robert Pattinson plays Mickey, an “expendable” who assists in the colonization of an icy planet far away from Earth. His job is to die – literally. He perishes from airborne viruses and other threats so that scientists can learn. Every time he passes away, they simply print out another copy of him. The 17th iteration of Mickey is mistaken for dead after falling into a crevasse. He makes his way back to the ship, only to learn they’ve already printed out Mickey 18 (also played by Pattinson). Since doubles are forbidden, both versions are in peril.

For the first act, it appears the movie will be a comic meditation on life and death. People are always asking Mickey how it feels to die, to his frustration. His demises are portrayed humorously, with the character expressing resignation to his fates. Then the story goes off in multiple other directions. There’s a romantic rivalry between the Mickeys for the heart of security officer Nasha (Naomi Ackles). There’s a subplot about Mickey’s scheming best friend Timo (Steven Yuen). There’s a secondary plot regarding Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a vein, weaselly politician who has his own TV show, sucks up to religious leaders, and is perpetually concerned with looking powerful. Does he have a legion of red hat-wearing supporters? You bet. Toni Collette co-stars as Marshall’s material wife. Together, they run the colonization operation.

Mickey 17 ultimately proves to be less than the sum of its parts, even if those parts are interesting on their own. Pattinson is in goofball mode, which is fun to see. He’s terrific playing the hapless title figure. A couple good action scenes are scattered throughout, with a climactic battle against a sea of alien creatures being tops among them. The movie’s social satire often proves biting, as well. The story touches on political extremism, class structure, and cultural attitudes toward death.

The problem is that, by incorporating so many varied factors, the film feels like it’s going in a hundred different directions simultaneously. Watching it is akin to flipping around the channels on a TV set. One minute you’ve got a broad comedy, the next a hardcore action flick, the next a romance, and so on. It’s a fairly disjointed experience from a tonal standpoint because Bong Joon-ho never manages to meld everything into a coherent whole. Pieces fit together awkwardly or appear to bang up against each other randomly.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that I found the picture slightly depressing. The cavalier attitude toward death provides the set-up for a few funny gags, yet the screenplay fails to make a legitimate satiric point about the subject. Mickey 17’s final line of dialogue ostensibly tries. That line, however, is a throwaway before the image cuts to black, depriving it of any relevance.

I enjoyed the movie’s performances, visual effects, and overall ambition. Those qualities are undeniable. At the end of the day, there’s simply too much going on all at once here, and that prevents the film from really lifting off. Mickey 17 is like an all-you-can-eat buffet. You scarf down a lot of delicious stuff but still walk away feeling as though you haven’t eaten a proper meal.

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