Mickey 17

"Hey, Mickey! How does it feel to die?"

What a weird, weird movie. This is definitely not just a fun romp at the theatre. It's weird.

That was my overwhelming initial reaction, and maybe I should have expected that. Bong Joon-ho makes weird movies. I adore 2013's Snowpiercer, but there's some really strange moments in it. Mickey 17 actually feels a lot like Snowpiercer's cousin. Its less successful, less intelligent cousin. Just look at the difference between its two protagonists.

On one hand, you have Chris Evans as he fights tool and nail through an unstoppable train. On the other, you have Robert Pattinson repeatedly dying and otherwise being used as a glorified, disposable lab rat.

On that note, Pattinson is very good here. I've greatly enjoyed his evolution from Teenager Heartthrob to Weird, Pathetic Movie Guy, and Mickey 17 is definitely Pattinson's at his most Weird, Pathetic, Movie Guy-y. He's like a raggedy, wet cat desperate for any kind of affection. He's a very different person than the self-assured, violent Mickey 18. (I liked 18 a lot better. He was a lot more fun.)

The fact that they are so different is a fascinating idea. Theoretically, the Mickeys should be identical, but each Mickey is apparently very different from each other. The movie never really pays any attention to this idea, though, which is a repeated pattern. It doesn't interrogate anything or shade in any subtleties.

Look, if you're gonna have a politician character, specifically a failed politician who bumbles through speeches and is obsessed with image... don't make his zealous followers wear red hats. The Marshall characters were just deeply unpleasant for me, and not in an enjoyable way.

Because sometimes having those deeply unpleasant characters is fun. They add texture and friction to something. But Marshall and his wife talking repeatedly about how they were going to build a pure society in this untouched, white world (among other things) was too much. Way too much.

The Marshall screen time was probably simply too high in general. This is not a short movie, clocking in at 137 minutes, and the middle section definitely felt bloated and a bit listless. Scenes drag on, or they gesture towards something that is then dropped immediately after.

Like the entire character of Kai. She completely disappears from the last third of the movie even though she had been a fairly major player up until that point. Kai herself had also introduced a really fascinating dynamic with Mickey and showed a side of his romantic relationship with Nasha that was maybe more than a little toxic, but all of that complexity left when she did.

For being such a long movie, it's incredibly disjointed. It's not just about clones being a form of immortality, or the dehumanization of employees, or the propaganda system surrounding politicians, or questions of the soul, or first contact with aliens, or at least a dozen other things that I could list off. It's all of them, which also means that it's none of them.

It's very well acted. It's aesthetically pleasing to look at. It's made well. It's just very, very weird. I wanted to like this movie. I went into it excited to watch it. But if I hadn't committed to reviewing it, I might have walked out after the first half hour or so simply because I wasn't enjoying the experience, not on a emotional level nor an intellectual one.

There is definitely an audience out there for this movie, though. I can see it being something that has its passionate defenders. I can see it becoming a cult classic. It just wasn't one for me.

Random Thoughts

I did love the printing montage. That was fun and funny.

The Creepers were actually adorable, and the CGI was pretty strong across the board.

I didn't realize that this was an adaptation of the book Mickey7 until I did a little background research for this review.

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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.

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