Mickey 17: A Review

MICKEY 17

Put aside any jokes about not having seen Mickey 1 to Mickey 16. Mickey 17, the newest film from Parasite director Bong Joon Ho, is a long, boring, rambling, confused film that is delusional in its ideas about itself. 

Told mostly in voiceover by Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), we learn that he and his frenemy Timo (Steven Yeun) are in major trouble with loan sharks after their macaron business goes belly-up. In order to escape them, Mickey and Timo get on one of the last ships going to a new planet, Nifleheim. Nifleheim will be ruled by former Congressman Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a total idiot who has a peculiar cadence in his speaking and whose passionate devotees wear red caps.

Make of that what you will.

Timo gets the pretty cushy job of pilot. Mickey, not the brightest of beings, signs up to be an Expendable, someone who will be sent out on dangerous missions and if killed, will be cloned back to do it all over again, his saved memories intact. Despite this drawback, there are benefits in the form of security officer Nasha Berridge (Naomi Ackie), who immediately falls in love with Mickey in all his forms.

Things get complicated when Mickey 17 falls into an icy ravine. Timo gives him up for dead, and the strange slug-like creature that takes Mickey makes it almost certain that he's a goner. To his surprise, the creeper as the humans have dubbed the creature takes Mickey to the surface, where he boards a vehicle that unwittingly takes him back to the spaceship. More surprising is that Mickey 17 discovers that the mad scientists have already made a Mickey 18, who is very displeased at seeing his predecessor very much alive.

This causes all sorts of problems, especially as "Multiples" are to be permanently exterminated, memories and all. As more and more people discover the Multiple Mickeys, it could be curtains for them too. Will Nasha, high off the drug that Timo sells to the other passengers, get a menage a trois with both Mickeys? Will Timo's secret drug running be discovered? Will First Lady Ylfa Marshall (Toni Collette) get the perfect spice? Will the creepers overrun the humans, or will it take Kenneth's fall to save the entire planet?

At the end of the Mickey 17 screening that I attended, one man got up, turned to his companions and said very loudly, "This movie sucked". I think that is a very succinct and accurate description of Mickey 17 to where I should just leave it at that. However, as someone who loves to go on, I'll expand on why this person is right.

One thing that sinks Mickey 17 is in how long the film is. Mickey 17 runs a punishing two hours and seventeen minutes, which is enough of a problem of its own. I do not know why director Bong (who also adapted Edward Ashton's novel Mickey 7), decided that it was best to spend a full forty minutes going from Point A to Point A. We start Mickey 17 with him falling into the icy ravine, then go back four and a third years ago and then go straight to where we started Mickey 17 before continuing the movie. I cannot find any justification for taking forty minutes to give us the background of the Mickeys, Tomi and Nasha only to take us back to where we started.

Efforts for the comedy, such as the loan sharks for a macaron business, fall flat. Efforts at political satire also fall flat. A good parody has to come from a place of, if not affection, at least from amusement at the subject. You cannot make good parody if you hate the subject, because the only thing that you are showing is your almost unhinged hatred. Ruffalo and Bong are not bothering with subtlety or wit in how Kenneth Marshall is meant to be Donald Trump. The red cap-wearing loyalists begging for The Ken's attention. The nonsensical verbiage that Marshall trots out, such as his command that there be no sex on his ship. His dreams to rule over all the inhabitants. Marshall's particular speaking style. Even a wish to make a "pure white planet". Ruffalo and Bong feed their Trump Derangement Syndrome with no sense of humor.

On the last part, one can make the argument that his term "pure white planet" was in reference to the cold snow all around them. However, I think Ruffalo and Bong were not talking about Nifleheim's wintery temperatures.

I'm not big on analogies to fit contemporary situations. However, when you have this Donald Trump in all but name being told what's what by a strong black woman, one wonders if Bong thought he was being funnier and cleverer than he actually was.

I think the Mickey 17 trailer suggested some kind of comedy. I understand that Mickey 17 is thought of as a comedy. However, I didn't laugh once, and the audience did laugh once. The sight gag of a cloned Mickey about to fall out of the printer because no one had bothered to put a table for him was not funny the first time. Why did Bong think it would be funny the second time?

Mickey 17 is such a tonally confused film. Nasha (which I kept hearing as "nauseous") is supposed to be this solid, by the book security officer. All of a sudden, she takes drugs before meeting the two Mickeys and hinting that she would like a threesome. Why would she take substances that she is firmly against?

The film also shifts from a lack of focus. For long stretches we forget about characters. Tomi pops up early on, then is forgotten for so long I had forgotten that he was in the film. Same with Marshall and Ylfa. Another character, Kai (Anamaria Vartolomei) also pops up almost at random. Her big moment is when she and Mickey are invited to have dinner with the Marshalls. After hearing Kenneth's crazed almost eugenic plan, she retorts something along the lines of "I'm not just a uterus". 

There were no performances in Mickey 17. Robert Pattinson's idea of a performance was to adopt a very child-like speaking style as Mickeys 1-17, which we hear in the voiceover narration. Once we get to Mickey 18, however, Pattinson's voice becomes stronger, more confident, his body movement more aggressive and assertive. If we go with what Mickey 17 led us to think, all the past Mickeys have had the same personality and mannerisms. So how did we all of a sudden get a totally new version of the character?

Even this part seems to be illogical. Up to Mickey 17, there had always been a confirmed death (they would throw his corpse down an intergalactic trash disposal). Now, for some reason that perhaps I missed, they opted to clone without official confirmation outside Tomi's statements? Everyone in Mickey 17 was given license to overact and ham it up as if it was going out of style. Pattison was too determined to convince the world that he truly is his generation's Peter O'Toole, which ends making things look more foolish. Ruffalo and Collette were overacting with an almost crazed glee, as if they thought there was no such thing as going over the top. Yeun was in the film too briefly to make anything connected with him good. 

Ackie did her best, but she could never make Nasha anything more than mostly a know-it-all scold.

Mickey 17 also had a score from Jung Jae-il that was too cutesy for its own good. I think it was meant to emphasize the comedic elements in the film. Unfortunately, there were no comedic elements. Finally, Bong opted to move the camera back-and-forth between one character and another, creating a kind of whiplash that did nothing but draw attention to itself.

Mickey 17 is a piece of junk with nothing to recommend it. Confused, poorly structured, wildly and deliberately overacted, I cannot fathom why so many found the film good to great. None of these Mickeys are fine and they won't blow your mind. 

DECISION: F