Mickey 17

This weekend, Mickey 17, the newest film by Bong Jun Ho, the director of Parasite, releases in theaters. Mickey 17 tells the story of Mickey Barnes, a man who enlists in a new space expedition to be an Expendable (someone who receives deadly missions and tests only to be reprinted the next day). This was one of my most anticipated movies of the year as it is an original Sci-Fi story by an award-winning director.

In general, I thought this movie was pretty good. I liked that it was an original Sci-Fi story. Almost everything Sci-Fi these days is tied to an existing IP so it was so refreshing to have something original. Mickey 17 is totally different than Parasite. Where Parasite was an intense thriller, Mickey 17 is a satirical comedy. Having two films so different shows the director, Bong Jun Ho's range. This movie was full of witty social and political commentary. It comments on a lot of aspects of today's political climate such as governments toeing the line on being a dictatorship, human rights arguments, and religious connections to government. Along with the commentary, the movie also has a lot of funny moments. The humor is not laugh out loud obvious type of humor but is more the dry subtle type of humor. There are some solid acting performances as well. Mark Ruffalo plays a great bumbling politician turned dictator. He has some aspects of Trump but Bong Jun Ho also cited that he used multiple other political leaders as inspiration as well. Toni Collette is also great as Mark Ruffalo's life. She plays a very manipulative person who also has one hand on the wheel with control of this colony. However, the stand out of this movie is Robert Pattinson. Not only does he play such a different character than he has in every other movie, but he plays two characters in this movie. Both versions of Mickey have completely different world views and Robert Pattinson does a great job of playing both of them. From Edward in Twilight to Neil in Tenet, Batman in The Batman, and now Mickey 17, Robert Pattinson is a great actor with a large amount of range.

There are a couple of issues that hold the movie back. I did get lost a little bit in the satire. I could tell that the movie was providing commentary but wasn't clear what it was providing commentary on. I have a hard time seeing the deeper meaning in things and have a hard time just not seeing the movie at face value. I also thought that the movie had too many different ideas it was trying to explore. The main premise with the cloning and exploration was adequately told but then the movie tries to throw in ideas about a love triangle, drug dealing, and running from the past on Earth, none of which get a sufficient amount of time to develop. They all have some moments in the middle act of the film but then don't get addressed until the very end making these ideas feel underdeveloped and hollow.

Overall, I thought Mickey 17 was a fun Sci-Fi comedy. It wasn't as good as I had hoped but there were still a lot of aspects that worked well. The movie just had a bit too many ideas and not enough time to explore them all.

Score: 7/10 Grade: B Recommendation: Check it out