“Mickey 17” is showing at the Eclipse Theater in Breckenridge
“Mickey 17,” the latest mind-trip from South Korean director Bong Joon Ho, raises the messy questions sci-fi films have been asking since Kubrick sent hairless apes into space: Who are we? Where do we come from? Are we doomed to take life too seriously?
Joon Ho’s adaptation of a 2022 novel, “Mickey7,” answers most of these questions with trademark style. It’s South Park meets “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” where nothing is safe from satire – religion, science, climate change, loan sharks – and every line is dripping with dry, acerbic wit. The director of “Parasite” and “Snowpiercer” is raging against the machine while whispering sweet nothings about the hopelessness of it all.
But when you don’t pick a side, you’d better have something new to say, and that’s where “Mickey 17” falters. Baffling choices late in the film leave big questions half answered, like a copier that’s run out of ink.
The first question, “What’s it like to die?” is cleverly never answered. At least three people ask this of Mickey (Robert Pattinson), dubbed “17” because he is the 17th replica of everything that makes him Mickey – eyes, feet, pimples, thoughts, maybe even the blueprint of a soul.
Mickey 17 is what’s known as an “expendable,” a clone who willingly gives his DNA to powerful people for the good of mankind. Or so they tell him. In this reality, expendables are human lab rats, literally printed on command and sent into space to test the effects of radiation, or infected to find the remedy for an alien virus. “Stabbed, gassed, dumped and burned,” Mickey sighs during one of the most perverted movie montages you’ll see this year.
Mickey admits he hates dying, each and every time, even after 17 deaths. He never talks about the physical pain, and only once does he admit it’s scary, when asked by a woman who has recently lost a loved one. This is the film’s most satisfying non-answer. She knows what Mickey knows in his photocopied guts: that no one really knows what it’s like to die, except for the grief felt by those still alive. Joon Ho lets this quiet revelation come and go, without dressing it up and parading it around. Moments like this are where “Mickey 17” shines.
Another question: Can Robert Pattinson carry a feature opposite himself? Absolutely. Pattinson is still best known for playing a vampire heartthrob in “Twilight” – it’s his lead credit on IMDb – but in the decade since, he has quietly built a reputation on the indie film circuit. Watch “The Lighthouse” for proof.
Pattinson easily slips between the two “main” versions of Mickey, meek 17 and brash 18. Mickey 17 will thank you for dinner after devouring a raw steak you’ve poisoned with untested growth hormone. Mickey 18 will threaten to kill you and then propose a threesome with your girlfriend.
Roger Ebert spent decades compiling a list of movie cliches called “Roger’s Little Rule Book.” (Think rules like ripping open a shirt to unveil a bulletproof vest when a lead character is shot in the chest.) I’ll add one called Clone Contact: “When one actor plays two lead characters, the two must have close physical contact, preferably a fist fight, so that the filmmakers can justify their gimmick.”
Yes, Pattinson gets in a fight with himself, and yes, he nearly has a threesome with himself. But through subtle acting, and Joon Ho’s capable directing, it’s rarely a gimmick. It’s the way this story should be told.
Another question is not so subtle: Can Hollywood make a film these days without political commentary? Not hardly. Joon Ho is credited as the sole writer, based on the novel by Edward Ashton. I’ll admit I’ve not read it. But the director was given a reported budget of $120 million, at least ten times more than the films he has done independently. Studio meddling was almost guaranteed. Like Mickey, you get the sick feeling Joon Ho sold his soul for pennies on the dollar.
Certain characters, especially Mark Ruffalo’s preening riff on Donald Trump, play like a bad SNL skit, bogging it down and instantly dating it. In a story about cloning, these thin political caricatures are the cheapest knockoffs. And then there are the Creepers, the alien critters that could easily be ditched and yet dominate most of the final hour. I can’t help but wonder if Joon Ho had a different film in mind before The Company derailed the finale.
Which leads to the messiest non-answer in “Mickey 17”: Would you give up your life – your free will, your soul – for immortality?
It’s a question Joon Ho as Mickey never quite figures out. At first, he does it for the money. Then he does it for humanity. Sometimes he does it out of guilt. He eventually tries to convince us he does it for the old standby, love, but even this is diluted by an awkward fourth-wall diatribe and fake-out dream sequence in the confounding final act.
Mickey remains a clone, doomed to live, love and die, only this time there’s no coming back. Even a copy of a copy deserves better. So does Joon Ho.