Pan and Slam

Mickey 17

R 2h 17m

• Director
  • Bong Joon Ho
• Writers
  • Bong Joon Ho
  • Edward Ashton
• Stars
  • Robert Pattinson
  • Steven Yeun
  • Michael Monroe

by Jason Koenigsberg

Six years after Bong Joon Ho delivered the global phenomenon Parasite (2019) he finally has another feature film credit for audiences to flock to. The world is very different since Parasite made history winning the Academy Award for Best Picture and was the toast of the town on the eve the pandemic. People do not exactly flock to R-rated science fiction movies that are not part of a cinematic universe or brand name property despite having a big star like Robert Pattinson as the lead. So how does Bong Joon Ho’s long awaited post-COVID follow up Mickey 17 stand on its own as the work of a great cinematic auteur? Well, it certainly is not one of his best films but it is not a total failure. Mickey 17 falls in a long line of recent movies just feeling OK. No serious risks taken, no harm done, but nothing memorable or poignant comes out of it.

Mickey 17 tells the story of a man named Mickey (Pattinson) in the future who volunteers to be an ‘expendable’. A thankless job where he is willing to die for his employer on command. His job forces him to place himself in the most dangerous situations knowing that he will re-awaken alive exactly as he was before his death with all of his memories intact. So basically what ‘South Park’ does to Kenny on a regular basis just with the moral implications of what killing a human life would entail knowing that he can come back exactly the same after his death. This is done in the future through a type of CAT scan sized 3D printer that can print or clone human beings. These ‘expendables’ live unimaginably painful lives as the movie tries to create a future world with an evolved type of slavery.

The opening shot shows Pattinson’s face up close covered in snow as he wipes it away and removes his goggles to reveal it is him. He just fell in a hole on an ice planet and is coldly left for death by his co-workers since they treat his life as if it is a recyclable piece of garbage. To his face they coldly state he’ll come back again just fine the next day. Mickey 17 tries to be realistic with a righteous moral code. An early scene of Robert Pattinson sitting in a car as a human crash test dummy is quite obvious that this is going to a ‘message movie’ and that is exactly what Mickey 17 is for two a quarter hours. The crowds of weak minded people wearing red hats and red shirts cheering for Mark Ruffalo’s politician character are an obvious jab at the MAGA worship of Donald Trump. A female African-American character starts off as a sex object for Pattinson but in the end has a chance to be humanity’s answer for change similar to what Kamala Harris was for the Democrats, and the attack first attitude on aliens when the humans are invading their planet is not subtle or smart, it is beating the audience over the head with its message.

Robert Pattinson maintains his composure, carries the movie with an impressive dual performance and deftly leans into the scripts humor. Mickey 17’s ability to provoke laughs in unlikely moments is one of the movies strengths and remains one of Bong Joon Ho’s finest qualities in all of his pictures. Those are the two best elements of Mickey 17. Everything else is average at best. The alien bug creatures that they encounter on the ice planet are clearly meant to resemble buffalo roaming the snowy Great Plains and remind audiences of the horrible injustices our government inflicted on Native Americans. Plus the translation tool they introduce at the end is some of the laziest writing to make the plot move faster in an already overlong picture. Mickey 17 takes themes and images from so many other movies that deal with the concept of a lower class, or a manmade human being forced to do the dirty work of the future. 1982’s Blade Runner is maybe the best and most influential title to come to mind but there have been dozens of anti-cloning movies from the past that have made the same statement in less heavy handed ways. This movie suffers from not feeling like an original statement other than an obvious topical commentary about some of our political leaders and issues regarding immigration and trying to create an ‘other’ group in society to either leave the country, or do the jobs that white upper class people do not want to do.

Bong Joon Ho has made terrific sci-fi films before with his monster movie The Host (2007), and his dystopian future of all humans surviving on a train during another ice age in Snowpiercer (2014). They both deal with themes about socioeconomic class structure, race, gender, and have a lot more original ideas, and genuine humor than Mickey 17 does. I have no doubt that when Bong Joon Ho dips his feet into the sci-fi genre again he will give viewers something more engaging and less patronizing than what we have here.

Skip Mickey 17 and rewatch his masterpiece Parasite instead or check out The Host. Still one of my favorite movies from Bong Joon Ho. A scary, funny, and exhilarating monster movie.