“Mickey 17” is written and directed by South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho, known for bizarre tales about class division and warfare, such as “Parasite”, which won a Best Picture Oscar for 2019, and “Snowpiercer.”
By comparison, though, his new film comes across as a lead-footed disappointment.
Robert Pattinson plays Mickey Barnes, who looks like he’s spent most of his life having people step on his fingers. Trying to escape the dangers of a dystopian Earth in the 2050’s, he enlists for a space expedition aiming to colonize a distant ice planet.
Mickey doesn’t read the fine print in his contract, (or even the large print), and finds he has signed up to be an Expendable. Subjected to a cloning technology apparently inspired by Kinko’s, Mickey dies over and over again, sent out on suicide missions or subjected to probably-fatal medical experiments. Every time he dies, a machine spits out a new copy, with his memories intact of his past lives—and deaths.
It looks like Mickey #17 is again doomed, during a recon mission on the ice planet, Nifhaim, when he’s captured by the indigenous slug-like inhabitants. But the so-called “creepers” are more intelligent and less predatory, than anyone realizes.
Mickey survives, but when he returns to base, finds they’ve already spit out a Mickey 18—who is, for some reason, a tougher, more hard-bitten personality than 17.
Complications ensue, dealing with fate, identity and life and death. But the plot turns aren’t more compelling than what, say, you would get in an average week from “Futurama”, “Red Dwarf” or “Rick and Morty.”
The movie shifts focus to a genocidal attack on the lovable “creepers” planned by the cartoonish villains leading the expedition. They’re an evangelical couple portrayed by Mark Ruffalo, as a mush-mouthed maniac politician, and Toni Collette, as a gushy supportive wife who’s the real brains of the combo.
There’s little evidence that they are a Trump parody. But movie-goers, you do you.
“Mickey 17” has a wicked energy, splendid special effects and a nicely-detailed vision of a grim future. But in the end, the story seems to boldly go—where we’ve been before.
The film achieves a warp speed of three on a scale of five.
