South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho shot to prominence when his 2019 film “Parasite” became the first foreign-language film to win the Best Picture Oscar – 91 years after the first Oscars. Although Korean, “Parasite” had a very American feel; watching it felt like watching the latest Quentin Tarantino picture. My fear with “Parasite” winning Best Picture was that it would inspire other foreign directors to copy American films.
Given this year’s “I’m Still Here” and “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” my premonition has been realized – much as I admired both those films. What a contrast from my youth, when young American directors like Mike Nichols were copying the work of European filmmakers.
Because of the somewhat surprising success of “Parasite,” audiences have been waiting over five years for Bong’s follow-up film – an English-language science fiction thriller starring Robert Pattinson of “The Batman” fame. While I was not a huge fan of “Parasite” – I certainly didn’t think it was deserving of Best Picture honors – Bong’s latest effort is an absolute mess.
Set 30 years into the future, “Mickey 17” stars Pattinson as a so-called “expendable.” Expendables are those who sign up to travel with astronauts to distant planets in distant galaxies for the sole purpose of losing their lives for the advancement of science. Pattinson’s character, Mickey, is decapitated, exposed to extreme levels of radiation, falls through thin ice, and so forth. But fortunately, he’s been cloned, such that each time he dies, a new copy of Mickey is printed out of a regeneration machine of some sort. At the outset of the film, Pattison’s Mickey is the seventeenth version of the character. In other words, he’s already died sixteen times.
Problems arise when Mickey’s superiors believe him to be dead, so they create an eighteenth version. However, Mickey 17 has been rescued by creepers, the inhabitants of a planet called Niflheim, who look like aardvarks crossed with a Venus flytrap. Back at the colony, Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 (both played by Pattison) meet one another. Ironically, Mickey 18 is an egotistical jerk – whereas the previous 17 versions were all “nice guys.” As with much of Bong’s original screenplay, this dichotomy is never explained.
The colony (which appears to include at least 100 earthlings) is overseen by a pompous blowhard by the name of Kenneth Marshall, a splendidly coiffed political leader who comes off as one of those televangelist hucksters from the 20th century. And there is a certain religious angle to Marshall’s incessant ramblings, although, here again, that plot thread is never really explored. Marshall and his overly materialistic wife are played by Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette. Following his over-the-top turn as the jerk lawyer in “Poor Things,” I long for Ruffalo to return to playing the understated everyman characters of his early career.
In another missed opportunity for “Mickey 17,” Mickey’s girlfriend in the colony is Nasha, played by British actress Naomi Ackie – but we’re never privy to what attracted them to one another in the first place. We see their initial dinnertime conversation, but we can’t hear what they’re saying over the loud music! I realize this scene would probably best be described as a “meet cute,” but I’d still like to know the basis for their attraction. Instead, Bong chooses not to write this dialog at all, instead immediately throwing them into bed for the first of too many lovemaking scenes between the two characters.
Later, a scientist named Kai (French actress Anamaria Vartolomei) develops an unexplained crush on Mickey 18 – or is it Mickey 17? – which leads to a mildly humorous episode of mistaken identity. But once again, this plot thread begins but is quickly dropped, with Kai never to be seen again. In fact, if Bong had eliminated all the superfluous storylines and just stuck with the two Mickeys, he could have shaved a good hour off the all-too-long running time.
By the time we finally arrive at the final battle scene – which somehow involves the creepers against the televangelist – we’ve long since ceased to care about anything except the location of the nearest bathroom. To say “Mickey 17” is a missed opportunity is almost giving it too much credit. For a writer and director as talented as Bong Joon-ho, I hope “Mickey 17” is merely an anomaly. If not, his career is essentially over.
