Ticketworthy! - Mickey 17

Sometimes things are better on paper than in reality. It happens to the best of us. Who hasn’t had a crazy idea for a business that will definitely never work? Or a book, or a movie? Director Bong Joon-ho is certainly no stranger to crazy ideas, having directed films like Parasite and Snowpiercer and getting critical acclaim each time. Even he, though, is not immune to a misstep here and there. What’s strange about Mickey 17, his latest outing, is just how full of ideas it is and how much not a single one of them works. It’s a little bit impressive.

The movie tells the story of Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), a down on his luck loser that signs on to a space expedition as an “Expendable”, someone who puts their life in jeopardy over and over in order to test the dangers of space travel and keep the rest of the ship safe. If an expendable dies, it’s no big deal, there’s a machine that just reprints their body and uploads their mind to it, bringing them back as good as new. When the 17th iteration of Mickey is believed to be dead, an 18th version is printed. Hijinks ensue when Micky #17 shows back up, very not dead, and the two Mickey’s have to hide the fact that they are Multiples or risk being killed for good.

On its own, that’s not a terrible plot for an action/comedy, and I think that Pattinson is a talented enough actor to pull off the double duty of playing both Mickey’s. I even quite like the concept that each Mickey has a slightly different personality, as though the mind transfer never gets it 100% right. Mickey #17 is a cowardly, sniveling loser, while #18 is more aggressive and angrier. There’s a really fun movie in there, and usually I’d expect Bong to pull the madness off.

Unfortunately, so much else got added on top of the story that there’s very little time to explore it and no real enjoyment to get out of it. There’s a loan shark that loves killing, alien bugs that are maybe man-eaters, a shifty drug-dealer that’s trying to play Mickey, a science team that seems to delight in his deaths, a love-triangle for some reason, and a pompous, stupid political leader that sells himself to the masses as a populist while really having no idea what he’s doing and just craves attention. No points for guessing the inspiration of that last one.

It’s all just too much, the movie is overcrowded and nothing has a chance to breathe. The politician, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), for instance, is so overdone and silly that he actually detracts from the film. I get it, it’s a timely reference, but it’s unnecessary. Ruffalo doesn’t give his best in the role and the movie wouldn’t have been much different without him. Every plot element is like that. By the end, so much is going on and none of it really matters that it’s tough to care about any of it. As a result, the action has very little tension and the humor mostly falls flat. My most noticeable emotion from beginning to end was boredom.

On top of the overstuffed plot, the movie is ugly. The planet they settle on is covered in snow and ice, and the ship and uniforms are all shades of grey and blandly designed. The whole thing looks like a worse version of Bong’s Snowpiercer, a vastly superior film that this one should probably avoid reminding us of as much as possible.

Mickey 17 could have greatly benefited from a few more revisions and a lot more restraint. If time had been spent a bit more wisely, developing Mickey and his relationships or really digging into the dynamic between #17 and #18, I could see it being a good film. The talent is there, the director has a history of success, and the concept is more than enough to work with. The final product here is simply a mess. My advice would be to fire up that reprinting machine and try this one again.