Mickey 17
Mickey 17 is Bong Joon-ho’s worst film by a significant margin.
That's not to say his adaptation of Edward Ashton’s novel Mickey 7 is a bad movie. It's too well-made, creative, and gloriously weird to deserve the “b” word. But it is a messy work, one that goes overboard on its goofy tone without the usual trademarked Bong sincerity and humanity to ground it.
Such balance allowed for his three previous films to veer off in some decidedly wacky directions with unhinged characters presented as stark (read: evil) contrasts to the more noble pursuits of the films’ heroes. Think Tilda Swinton’s Mason in Snowpiercer, Park Myeong-hoon’s unexpected guest in Parasite, and Swinton’s Lucy and Nancy Mirando and especially Jake Gyllenhaal’s Johnny Wilcox in Okja.
But Mickey 17 feels like continual riffs on these character types, minus the “normal” protagonist(s). It’s also Bong’s first feature written without a collaborator, which suggests that a second voice is vital to his vision hitting screens with maximum impact and poetry.
Still, Bong clearly sees Robert Pattinson’s eponymous simpleton as his latest film’s hero. After a rough introduction where the actor's clownish, exaggerated voice may send a few viewers running for the exit, things quickly smooth out as we’re introduced to Mickey’s background as a failed businessman, hunted by a loan shark, who signs up to be an Expendable (i.e. human guinea pig, capable of being “reprinted” after each death) for a space colonization mission.
Whether intentional or not, this quest takes a page from Adam McKay’s underrated Don't Look Up, its real-life inspirations of tech billionaires who’d rather start fresh on another planet than try to save Earth, and the politicians who are more than happy to blindly follow them there. Similar to McKay, Bong is not subtle in his messaging, and Mark Ruffalo’s portrayal of capped-teeth, failed legislator Kenneth Marshall is almost too good a depiction of Donald Trump.
Some of Mickey 17’s best scenes involve this egomaniacal con artist, his Lady Macbeth-like wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), and their red-hat-wearing minions. Bong likely wrote the film with confidence that Trump would never be reelected, and while filming took place in 2022 with Ruffalo thinking the whole thing was “over the top,” there’s a potent sense that the filmmaker saw the increasingly likely future and laid it out as such in case his worst fears came true.
While such satire is present and has (sharp, non-capped) teeth, too many other narrative strands are competing for attention for any one to memorably land. Mickey's storyline loses its way once multiple versions of himself come into play, the team of scientists disrupt any semblance of flow Bong manages to create, and the Okja-esque indigenous beings that inhabit the ice planet Niflheim have their potential undermined by the filmmaker’s love of chaos.
In the process, numerous jokes fall flat, and while Pattinson's dual performances are technically impressive, they're in the service of jarringly subpar material. Naomi Ackie and Steven Yeun likewise come off more mediocre than usual, and while their fellow space travelers deliver a few solid moments, these too feel like happy accidents.
So, no, it's tough to recommend Mickey 17 and there's a good chance I’m overrating the shaggy imagination on display and giving too much credit to a filmmaker who's been one of cinema’s most consistent voices for the past 20 years. But as is the case with our greatest artists, a swing and miss by Bong is still better than a check swing from directors too timid to try something ambitious.
Grade: B-minus. Rated R. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, the Fine Arts Theatre, and Regal Biltmore Grande.
(Photo: Warner Bros.)
