Courtney Howard // Film Critic
MICKEY 17
Rated R, 2 hours and 17 minutes
Directed by: Bong Joon Ho
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Anamaria Vartolomei
There’s nothing understated about MICKEY 17. It plays at such a high-pitched frequency that it becomes unwieldy, spiraling out of control. While achieving this tone feels right on point in our disastrous political era the film comments on, director Bong Joon Ho has trouble expressing his points in anything less subtle than a sledgehammer to audiences’ heads. The Oscar-winning auteur plays his greatest hits with the class commentary of SNOWPIERCER and the ecological messaging of OKJA, however, wanders away from salient sentiments frequently where sequences just become about “the vibes.” Yet for all the frustrations that quickly present themselves with the narrative and its bluntly-trafficked themes, the lead actor’s completely gonzo performance feels like a God-given gift.
Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) got himself involved in a bad business scheme with his best friend Timo (Steven Yeun). The ruthless loan shark who leant them money is out to collect, not in cash, but in body parts. To evade his torturous methods of payback, Mickey and Timo sign up for the effort to recolonize Planet Niflheim, a fledgling mission across space led by disgraced blowhard politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his overbearing wife Ylfa (Toni Collette). Mickey, desperate to be accepted onto the ship, applies to be an expendable, a lowly worker whose thankless job it is to die and be reprinted as a clone used for scientific testing. The procedure has been banned on Earth over ethical violations, but in space, it’s sanctioned.
Yet trouble arises when Mickey 17 is out on an exploratory trek, falls down a crevasse and hurts himself. He’s left for dead, sure to either freeze or be eaten by the uninhabitable ice-planet’s frightening bug creatures they call creepers. But when those creepy-crawlies save him and he gets back onto the ship, he’s greeted by Mickey 18, his psychotic clone. They verbally and physically spar since only one can exist at a time legally. They unwittingly get themselves into trouble with Mickey’s lady love Nasha (Naomie Ackie), who’s forced to keep their overlapping existence a secret, and mixed up in Marshall’s latest hope for humanity’s future, launching a breeding program with shipmate Kia (Anamaria Vartolomei). Further chaos ensues and both Mickeys are forced to work together to save the world.
Bong, adapting Edward Ashton’s novel “Mickey 7,” heightens his source material’s outlandish nature and satirical calibration without deepening its stinging sensation. Commentary on corporations devaluing their workers, as well as megalomaniacal politicians devaluing scientists and human life in general, beat audiences over the head. That leaders are being puppeteered by nefarious bald men with ill-minded religious intentions feels entirely on-the-nose. And statements on American voters portrayed as blind devotees – sycophants playing passenger to their own destructive demise – lack much depth beyond their superficial inclusion.
Pacing is problematic as it spins its wheels getting characters from point A to point B. There are elongated sequences that could stand to be excised completely like Kai’s seduction of Mickey 17, which leads nowhere and adds no discernable interest. The C-storyline dealing with the threat of the loan shark’s mysterious mercenary onboard the ship doesn’t add much to the thrills beyond awaiting consequences for Timo’s betrayal of Mickey. Worst of all, any momentum built within the story beats leads to predictable outcomes.
Where the narrative disappoints, Pattinson picks up the proceedings. He’s absolutely fearless. Each version of Mickey is made wholly unique, from the dim-witted original to the unhinged, arrogant Mickey 18. Even when bashfully sweet Mickey 17 and his tougher clone 18 share the screen, he delineates between the two vastly different personalities through precise physicality. Pattinson also delivers perfect slapstick as if he’s channeling Buster Keaton, flopping out of the human printed naked, falling down a flight of stairs and clumsily pratfalling all over a fancy bar topped with a ton of glassware.
As for the supporting performances, Ackie gifts us with strong work as Mickey’s ride-or-die true love. She’s equally magnetic on-screen and the film suffers when she’s not around. Collette and Ruffalo, whose veneers do a lot of the heavy lifting, chew the scenery. These two typically dependable actors eat up every millisecond, going too broad with the material. Their scenes serve to grate on our nerves, not because their characters are reprehensible, but because they’re cartoonish absurdity doesn’t quite slot in effortlessly with the picture’s audacity.
While the Creepers are certainly cute and Pattison’s performance genuinely wows, the film, more often than not, chooses to belabor its points. Given we go to the movies for escapism, there’s too much here that reminds us of the real world.
Grade: C-
MICKEY 17 is now playing.
