Review: “Mickey 17” is refreshing science fiction fun
Score: ★★★★
I can’t think of a harder task than following up the Best Picture-winning “Parasite.” South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s masterpiece is one of the most beloved films of the 21st century, especially amongst Gen-Z filmgoers (myself very much included). In a year with many great films, “Parasite” stood head and shoulders above the rest, and whispers immediately started about Bong’s next project.
Enter “Mickey 17,” a film that wonderfully cashes in on all the goodwill built during a magical 2019 awards run. Equipped with a massive budget and strong Hollywood connections, Bong trades in his cerebral and metaphorical proclivities for something much more audacious and brash — a science-fiction romantic comedy that’s half satire and half slapstick.
“Mickey 17” follows Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), an average Joe whose financial troubles on Earth led him to sign up for a space colonization mission. After failing to read the fine print, Mickey becomes expendable: his body and memories have been backed up, and he can be reprinted whenever he dies.
The human printing concept is the film’s strongest idea. Questions of existentialism, ethics and personality all bubble under the film’s comedic surface, and this dynamic allows Bong to explain his perspective on these questions.
Specifically, Bong responds via Mickey’s romance with Nasha (Naomi Ackie). Mickey and Nasha grow together despite their challenges of the harsh conditions of the new world they are tasked with colonizing and the large ego of the disgraced politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), who is running the mission.
As it continues, the film becomes an intergalactic love story about finding happiness despite bad circumstances, a premise that lends itself well to the film’s overt satirization of our current political moment.
While it’s not as overt as last year’s “The Substance,” I would certainly classify Bong’s approach to commentary in this film as blunt (see the abundance of red hats and cartoonishly Trump-esque performance by Ruffalo).
Weaving all these threads together is Robert Pattinson’s performance(s) as the titular Mickey 17 and his accidentally printed counterpart, Mickey 18. Pattinson’s ability to delineate the two characters in terms of voice, stature and demeanor is incredible, as he seamlessly navigates playing two distinct characters who are often in the same scene. He also excellently performs various physical gags — tripping, falling and screaming — in increasingly hilarious ways.
This is not to discredit any of the other actors — Naomi Ackie’s kindness infects the other characters that surround her, and both Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette (who plays Ylfa, Kenneth Marshall’s wife) are excellent at being obliviously evil politicians. Everybody brings something to their character, which amplifies both the warmth at the center of the film and the prickly humor.
However, “Mickey 17”’s multilayered approach does have its drawbacks. By fully exercising his well-earned creative freedom, Bong has taken a shotgun approach — he is doing many different things at once, and I am unsure if everything works perfectly together.
Again, this film is equal parts satire, romance, sci-fi and comedy, and I don’t know if every detail works in tandem. The third act, for instance, drags in the way many science fiction stories do as the stakes rise and the film turns away from the core mysteries that made it enjoyable in the first place. As funny as the film can be, there are moments without any laughs that made me question what exactly I was supposed to get out of each scene.
But regardless of this latent skepticism, I had a blast while actively watching the film. I sat there with a big dumb smile on my face, laughing along to the goofy satire, and by the end of the film, I was genuinely moved by the growth of the characters. It’s certainly a bit messy, but it’s well-intentioned and well-crafted in a way that is undeniable.
In a modern world seemingly defined by irony, it feels good to watch a blockbuster that acknowledges this while being openly earnest. While it is not the well-oiled machine “Parasite” was, “Mickey 17” finds its own identity amongst its intentional messiness — just like we all do.
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