Mickey 17

A small caveat before I get into the review here.  Bong Joon-ho is a director that fascinates me with his style, even if I don’t always find it works.  The Host in 2006 impressed me immediately, and Mother was a unique experience.  Snowpiercer, on initial release, failed to grab my attention – there was a good story buried in there (after all, the graphic novel it was drawn from was a cracking read), but the skewed and quirky political angle, with an almost Gilliam-esque approach to it, felt too off kilter and disruptive.  Now I revisited that film a few years later and embraced it more warmly (even if I do feel that the story was played much better in the rather marvellous TV adaptation).  Okja didn’t grab me in the same degree as it did others, but Parasite was a hit with me.  But, even when I’ve not quite connected with his films, this is a director whose unique style that he brings will always capture my interest.  So, with that said, when I heard that he would be tackling an adaptation of the sci-fi tale Mickey 7, and it would see Robert Pattinson playing the cloned “Expendable”, I was intrigued.

Mickey Barnes (Pattinson) and his buddy Timo (Steven Yuen) are in financial trouble with some loan sharks after a foolish business idea they had went under, and so they sign up to escape offworld to join a new colonial expedition being led by ex-politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo).  Timo signs up to be a pilot, but Mickey volunteers as an Expendable – a test subject who will be used to conduct scientific and medical experiments for the benefit of the colony, which will lead to him dying many times over, and a cloned version of him printed out to continue the tests.  However, whilst the colony struggles to settle in the harsh conditions of Niflheim, Mickey encounters some of the native creatures, and starts a journey that will prove critical for the survival of both species, whilst also contending with the fact that he was presumed dead and now there are two of him.

Pattinson is great in the dual role as Mickey 17 and 18 (and all the prior versions we see for brief periods), offering enough unique traits for the individuals that you don’t struggle to tell them apart.  Around him the cast are all good in their individual ways, but unfortunately don’t seem to be tonally matched in approach, with a mix of serious characters (Naomi Ackie’s Nasha) and quirky caricatures (Ruffalo and Collette) that don’t always sit comfortably alongside each other.  Whilst none of the cast are at fault here, it is the approach to the story which upsets the balance somewhat.

Bong Joon-ho has adapted the novel rather liberally, and instead of adopting a pure sci-fi take, he repeats the same style he used for Snowpiercer, and clashes some serious and brutal aspects with an overdone political and social pantomime, and not always to great effect.  The result is a bit messy, with some scenes feeling overcooked somewhat, leaving you begging for the story to just get to the point, and with an overall runtime clocking over two hours, it takes far too much time telling you nothing that is of any importance.  By the mid-point of the film, I was tiring of the more off-kilter aspects, and just wanted it to focus on the actual main plot.

Expecting a nice slice of sci-fi, and not the over-done comedy on offer, left me feeling disappointed with the end result – much in the same way I was with Snowpiercer – and whilst I can see the basis for a cracking tale here, in the end I left feeling unsated.  Maybe a revisit in a few years will garner a more positive approach, who knows?  But for now this feels like half the film it could have been, but taking twice as long to tell it.  A film you can appreciate aspects of, even if they don’t all come together perfectly, it wasn’t a wasted viewing, but it was underwhelming.