{"id":11380,"date":"2025-03-09T18:51:02","date_gmt":"2025-03-09T22:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11380"},"modified":"2025-04-23T00:58:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T04:58:13","slug":"mickey-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/03\/09\/mickey-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Mickey 17"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Mickey 17<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Sci-Fi-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 137 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violent content, language throughout, sexual content, drug material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Bong Joon-Ho\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Bong Joon-Ho\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jung Jae-Il\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Darius Khondji\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 7, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yuen, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo, Holliday Grainger, Anamaria Vartolomei, Steve Park.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0The new film from Bong Joon-Ho, the dark sci-fi-comedy Mickey 17<\/strong>, is interesting and ambitious. The director of Parasite, which won Oscars for both Best Picture and Best International Feature, takes a big swing with his latest feature. He explores some big themes- i.e. economic disparity, destruction of the planet and the dangers of authoritarianism- but fails to connect all the dots. It\u2019s a hit, but the runner only makes it to third.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Set about 30 years from now, the main character in this dystopian tale in Mickey Barnes (Pattinson, The Batman), a luckless sort on the run from loan sharks on earth after a failed business venture with his opportunistic friend Timo (Yeun, Beef). He signs on as an \u201cExpendable\u201d for a mission to colonize an ice-covered planet somewhere in the far reaches of space. An Expendable is somebody who does all the dangerous jobs nobody wants. When (no ifs about it) he gets killed, a clone is reprinted to take his place. By the time we meet him, he\u2019s on his 17th<\/sup> iteration hence the title Mickey 17<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The thing about cloning tech is that it\u2019s absolutely forbidden on earth. It can only be used in space. So it is that politician Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo, Poor Things) and his wife Ylfa (Collette, Hereditary) have set up an autocracy on a vessel headed to the ice planet thought to be uninhabited. It\u2019ll take four years to get there. Under his tyrannical rule, Expendables are treated as disposable objects used as slaves and\/or lab rats to test experimental drugs on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s a rule stating that two clones of the same person cannot exist at the same time. If that happens, both clones are destroyed and the template for the original is deleted. That\u2019s the threat faced by Mickey 17 when he survives a fall through a fissure and an attack by the planet\u2019s native lifeforms (aka \u201cCreepers\u201d). He makes it back to his quarters where he finds Mickey 18 already settling in. Aware of what will happen if they\u2019re found out, the more aggressive M18 tries to kill the passive M17. Then they agree to try and coexist which pleases M17\u2019s girlfriend Nasha (Ackie, I Wanna Dance with Somebody), a security officer with a healthy sexual appetite.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mickey 17<\/strong> is bizarre. To its credit, it\u2019s never boring. There\u2019s always something to hold your interest be it Pattinson\u2019s dual performance, some aspect of the film\u2019s production design or one of the many ideas floating around. On the downside, the scattered nature of the narrative diminishes any power the movie might have had with more focus on Bong\u2019s part. Some story elements, like Mickey\u2019s guilt over causing his mother\u2019s death as a child, go unexplored. Others, like the obvious model for Ruffalo\u2019s character, are about as subtle as a semi with a busted axle. It\u2019s all over the place both narratively and thematically. It\u2019s kind of frustrating, but not to the point where you just want to give up on the whole enterprise. There\u2019s something to it that keeps you holding on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I must compliment Pattinson on his double performance playing two different versions of the same character. You can hear it in how he expertly modulates his voice and body language. I\u2019d even say it\u2019s brilliant. He\u2019s come a long way since the Twilight series. The special effects that allow the two Mickeys to talk to each other are seamless. If Mickey 17<\/strong> succeeds anywhere, it\u2019s in the visuals. The production design by Fiona Crombie, along with Darius Khondji\u2019s cinematography, is both striking and ugly. The interior of the space craft is depressing and bleak, a perfect representation of the society Marshall wants to build.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ruffalo goes OTT with his depiction of a power-mad political leader out of touch with reality. He lost two elections on earth, so he puts himself in power somewhere else. Collette matches him as the wife convinced that sauces are the height of civility. Together, they are one scary couple. However, this particular scary crosses over into parody so you can\u2019t take it too seriously. Yuen adds comic relief as the so-called \u201cfriend\u2019 who consistently acts in his own best interests. We all know people like that, don\u2019t we? He nails it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The creature effects are pretty good even if the Creepers\u2019 role in Mickey 17<\/strong> is too obvious- i.e. they\u2019re symbolic of immigration and colonization. They look like gray armadillos clad in suede. They might not be pretty, but they\u2019re better than Ewoks any day.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I believe I will end my review here. Mickey 17<\/strong> is a movie you should see for yourself. It\u2019s one you have to get your mind around. It\u2019s not wholly successful at what it sets out to do, but it\u2019s smart enough that you won\u2019t mind connecting the dots yourself.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mickey 17 (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Sci-Fi-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 137 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violent content, language throughout, sexual content, drug material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Bong Joon-Ho\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Bong Joon-Ho\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jung Jae-Il\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Darius Khondji\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 7, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yuen, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo, Holliday Grainger, Anamaria Vartolomei, Steve Park. Rating: *** […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Mickey-17-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11380"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11387,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11380\/revisions\/11387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}