Mickey Barnes relocates to an off-world colony on Niflheim to escape the clutches of an evil loan shark. But will his new life turn into a nightmarish cycle of deaths for the betterment of mankind when he becomes an ‘Expendable’?
Written, produced, and directed by Bong Joon-ho, ‘Mickey 17’ is based on the 2022 novel of the same name by Edward Ashton. Bringing a director of Bong Joon-ho’s hugely successful past achievements and his multiple Oscar wins for the chillingly brilliant ‘Parasite’, which incidentally became the first foreign language film to take home the top prize, we find ourselves in the strange territory within a messy mixture of genres, including science fiction, satire, rom-com and also big screen action.
Based on a dystopian novel set in 2054 on the off world of Niflheim, this film follows a down on his luck Mickey Barnes, who has run into life threatening debt and looks to escape the clutches of a loan shark who not only wants his money back but also Mickey’s life. So he signs up to be an ‘Expendable’ in an off-world colony on a journey four years away. Here, his mission is to help the colony terraform on a new planet being the human guinea pig to push the boundaries of habitation and must ultimately die multiple times and be reprinted again and again to help aid the knowledge of exterior plagues, diseases and air quality for the masses.
With Robert Pattinson (The Batman) as our hero, Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice) as his love interest Nasha Barridge, we are off to a good start. Adding the solid comparatively senior lineup of Mark Ruffalo as the Trump-esque Kenneth Marshall, bringing his ‘Poor Things’ chaos once again and his overbearing wife Ylfa played by Toni Collette, with her strange love of the ultimate sauce we are almost complete.
When bringing together the above names into a film with a reported budge of $120m and coming from the confident stable of Warner Bros. this film should not only be beautiful to watch – and on the whole it is – it should also have its story coherently placed together within a comparatively long run time of almost 140 minutes. Character development should be concise with their own arcs and love interest detail should be well placed. Unfortunately, it is not. Bong has opted for the extreme of characters and in turn in his own words ‘dumbed down’ Mickey Barnes from the educated man in the novel to create the newer incarnation of the latter and far more ruthless Mickey 18. Pattinson does a stellar job of being the antithesis of himself as he brings the extremes to life – so to speak – but his actions seem to play to the extremes of Bong rather than for the progression of the story.
‘Mickey 17’ has divided critics from the wild and adventurous feel of Bong’s vision through to the question of why these top-level actors are required to play it so over the top? I am in the second camp here as so many of the Mickey’s versions were skipped over to get to the 17th iteration. Could we have stuck to the original seven, and felt a greater depth of his rebirth whilst he gains further memories of both good and bad from his new and alien world which has been thrust upon him in the most extreme of ways?
Go with an open mind and enjoy the ride with the possibility it may leave you wanting more as we wonder if Bong could have done less to make this far greater as we consider ourselves the aliens on this very planet we inhabit called Earth?
Author: Piers, Maidstone Store
