Bong Joon-ho’s latest film after Parasite, Mickey 17, is a sci-fi drama with a very evident satirical, political layer. The film that has Robert Pattinson playing the role of the title character does a fairly good job of creating its world with the help of a humor-driven voiceover from the main character. But after a point, the satirical elements become too big in the screenplay, and it starts to lose that intricate shape one would assume it would have eventually. With an easy conflict, simple resolution, and an overdone antagonist, Mickey 17 is more of a spoof set in the future.
So the story is set in the year 2058, and our hero, Mickey, is an Expendable in a spaceship that has left Earth to colonize a different planet named Niflheim. An Expendable means a guy who can be reprinted again and again after death as the memories of the person are stored somewhere, and he only needs a body. This reprinting scope is being used by the research people in the spaceship to analyze a lot of things. By helping them succeed in all that, almost 16 versions of Mickey have died, and currently, it is the 17th one. What we see in the movie is the interesting scheme of events that happened when they printed an 18th before confirming the death of the 17th.
The futuristic movies that have worked are mostly successful because they establish the rules and regulations of that world very smartly from the word go, and what we see in most of those films are conflicts happening in those settings because of certain restrictions or conditions that are exclusive to that time setting. They don’t tend to overtly emphasize flashy tech achievements. In the case of Mickey 17 also, Bong Joon-ho makes sure that we are not getting distracted by the alien setting of the movie. In fact, in the earlier portions of the film, where we see how Mickey ended up in the spaceship and how people treated Expendable, it feels more like a possible future.
For me where the movie really hits a creative roadblock is when it enters that Avatar-like template where we have the hero becoming the mole in the intruder community. The whole Creeper versus humans thing has an emotionally flat tone because it lacks intricacy. Maybe Bong Joon-ho was thinking about treating the template more simply. But that simplicity and the spoofing that happens in the political layer of the film make it look like a very odd and underwhelming black comedy. The Donald Trump-ish bad guy, Kenneth Marshall, is not just a clown. So, when an authoritarian like him becomes the antagonist, it restricts the film considerably.
Robert Pattinson, as various versions of Mickey Barns, mostly Mickey 17, played the character very effectively. The humor in the narrative is mostly communicated through his restrained body language and also the voiceovers. And the actor was able to show subtle yet distinctive differences when there were two versions of him on screen. Mark Ruffalo plays the part of the shady politician who is making the whole expedition a PR stunt for him. Since the script is making that character a caricature version of the modern-day leaders, Ruffalo uses that exaggerated style to present the character. Naomi Ackie, as Nasha, plays the love interest of Mickey in the film, and towards the final act of the movie, the role really becomes a demanding one.
Mickey 17 is a sci-fi satire that did the world-building part very effectively but lost its rhythm when the black humor kicked in. The writing couldn’t really sustain the intrigue it sort of built by showing us how everything came to this point. It is not a movie where you would feel like saying they should have explored something entirely different. But somewhere, the final output of this black comedy was leaning towards looking silly rather than hilarious.
Mickey 17 is a sci-fi satire that did the world-building part very effectively but lost its rhythm when the black humor kicked in.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
