A rule of thumb of mine, when a movie has wrapped filming more than two years prior to the movie’s release, my antenna perks up, and I go into that movie expecting a full blown disaster. Reason for this being mostly, why does it take so long to edit a movie? But also, why would a studio, like Warner Bros. in the case of the newest Bong Joon Ho movie, Mickey 17, be hanging onto a movie from a commercially viable filmmaker, who many believe is one of the contemporary masters, for such a long time when they are in desperate need of a commercial and critical hit? Especially considering that filmmaker, Bong Joon Ho, is coming off of an Academy Award and consensus masterpiece in Parasite.
Mickey 17 was scheduled for release in 2024, but was postponed partly because of the SAG-AFTRA strike. I guess it makes sense for promotional purposes. But, in this case, the star of Mickey 17 is Robert Pattinson. Pattinson is probably one of the best living actors under forty years old, but he’s no Timothee Chalamet on the promotional circuit or Zendaya as a social media presence. So again, I asked myself, what the hell is going on with Mickey 17? Turns out, Joon Ho had to fight for a while to secure the final cut of Mickey 17, but with that said, it took Stanley Kubrick less than twenty months to edit Eyes Wide Shut, another Warner Bros. release. Joon Ho might just be meticulous enough to patiently tinker with the theatrical cut to where he was satisfied, and with final cut it’s within his right, and maybe it’s been in the can for a while, but I find it strange that Mickey 17 was, for a lack of a better word, dumped into an early March 2025 release window when you would expect an 2024 awards season push from a film of this pedigree. Quite a few red flags here going into it. After seeing Mickey 17, it all started to make sense to me. So, let’s get into it…
To start, I want to circle back to the idea of a filmmaker having the final cut rights to a movie. I swear I’m no corporate shill, on the contrary I’m as pro-filmmaker as they come. I wholeheartedly and genuinely believe that the best work comes from singular visions where the voices and story can mostly, if not all be attributed to one author. This is known as the auteur theory, which came from a bunch of French critics but I mostly know it as a theory from film critic Andrew Sarris. With that said, the singular vision and autonomous decision making can lead to a volatile product. Sometimes it can work beautifully, and the movie becomes a masterpiece, and sometimes it can lead to a muddied, overindulgent and scattered product that was clearly overthought and overly tinkered with. In the case of Mickey 17, I would lean far more towards the latter, which we’ll revisit later because I do want to give some flowers first…
Flowers for an All-Timer
Bong Joon Ho is confirmed to be one of the greats, especially in the modern era. I find it so impressive when a filmmaker has such an understanding across genres that they can effectively make anything they want. There are so few filmmaking chameleons that it’s important to note that Joon Ho has that freakish ability to simply entertain an audience with effective and well-executed visual storytelling. Whether it be a crime thriller like Memories of Murder, a creature feature like The Host, an action thriller like Snowpiercer, comedic adventure like Okja and of course black comedy like Parasite, Joon Ho had the stuff to make it all work. His filmography is vastly unique, project to project, and his movies seem to always find an audience as a critical darling with commercial viability. My personal favorite is still Snowpiercer. I know what you’re thinking, how about this dumb American favoring Bong Joon Ho’s only mostly American movie that stars an American and contains mostly English speaking performers. Snowpiercer is definitely the xenophobic movie fan’s favorite of his works, but I find it to be Joon Ho’s most tightly constructed, action-packed and straight-line, literally, movie of his filmography. I swear it’s not because I don’t like subtitles…
Joon Ho’s work is eclectic, and very clearly dense and rich enough where you can tell so much thought was put into every frame, every detail and it’s all very personal to him. I would say his biggest strength is his visual feel with the camera. His movies all have a unique flair that works perfectly for the tone of each story he is telling. This is clearly someone who has seen a million movies and has a deep understanding of what looks cool, and also has the confidence, vision and ability to execute. Joon Ho doesn’t have a lot of output, with Mickey 17 being only the eighth film in his now twenty-five year career. Joon Ho clearly puts a lot of time into each and every project, and each and every one of those projects feels as though it is coming from a singular, well-thought out vision. If only five living filmmakers were allowed to have a final cut and as much time as they need to complete a project, you could definitely make an argument that Bong Joon Ho is one of them…
The star of Mickey 17, Robert Pattinson, has had a hell of a career so far, especially since being typecast early-on is a hell of a curse. When you are known to an entire generation of movie-goers as one thing, in his case, a vampire lover-boy from the Twilight franchise, it is so difficult to break out of that as you grow with that audience. So many movie stars have been trapped with this gift and a curse where that one role was so successful that you can’t escape it. Where your target demographic ages with you, and I believe that combination of the performer getting older along with the audience makes it even weirder for the audience as time passes and nostalgia kicks in. “Wow, look at Harry Potter now. I still see him as just a boy.” is a real psychological thing with the audience that is also aging along with these performers, and is teleported back into a bygone era just by looking at someone who strikes a nostalgia chord. That needs to be factored in with these guys and girls later in their careers. I look at people like Tobey Maguire and Daniel Radliffe as contemporaries of Pattinson who have similarly, aggressively, tried to break out of that typecast. I’d say both were moderately successful, Radcliffe more so than Maguire because of his talent, but Pattinson has far and away had the most post-typecast success of the three, and maybe anyone to be honest. Pattinson has done some truly crazy work taking on roles that are deranged and preposterous, in really great movies nonetheless. Pattinson’s work in Good Time is absolutely superb, easily one of the best performances of the 2010s, and has even gone on to star in the newest iteration of Batman, where he plays a grungy version of the Batman character. Pattinson does it all now, and like Joon Ho, has a very eclectic taste that leads to interesting career choices. These two were destined to work with each other. (Long pause). But there’s always a but. I’m not sure that Mickey 17 is the best use of Pattinson’s talents, or Joon Ho’s time…
Mickey 17
Mickey 17 is based on a book, called Mickey7, that is a science fiction story about a man on an alien planet, as part of a colony, who serves as an “expendable” as they call it. This man, Mickey, serves the purpose of doing the dirty and dangerous work for this colony, while trying to colonize this planet. Mickey is the go-to for this work because as the expendable description implies, Mickey’s body can be reprinted after he dies, thus, making him an expendable asset. With this ability comes complications. Scattered memory, duplicate bodies, etc. The novel is fun and is centered around the idea of clones and such. Mickey 17, the movie, takes this groundwork and expands on it exponentially so. Mickey 17 is about a man, Mickey, played by Pattinson, who has trouble on earth, so he signs up for this colonization of a planet that is four years worth of traveling distance away, led by a maniacal political figure played by Mark Ruffalo. In desperation, Mickey agrees to sign up as an expendable, as it was his only way to join the colony. With that job comes lots of death that is presented light-heartedly. The movie tracks from beginning of colonization to end, with lots of hi-jinx in between. Mickey is portrayed as a tragic figure, used and abused for the benefit of the rich and powerful, on this enormously pointless expedition. Mark Ruffalo’s character, Kenneth Marshall, is a ludicrously farcical version of a ego-maniacal wannabe dictator, who is a political outcast on earth because of recent controversies. The whole movie I couldn’t quite figure out why the members of this colony are following this loser into space, which of course is the thematic point, as it is a satire after all. Before we circle back to Ruffalo, it’s important to note that the rest of the cast is rounded out by Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie and Toni Collette, who play key figures in this story. Colette plays the wife of Ruffalo’s character, who is just as deranged as he is, Ackie plays the love interest of Mickey, and member of the colony, and Yeun plays Mickey’s selfish and troubled friend, who is a consistent foil to Mickey both on Earth and in Space…
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Mickey 17 is essentially the story of a man who takes a beating until he doesn’t anymore. Disregarding the alien plot, the dictatorship and colonization centric political satire, comedic tone bordering on parody and cautionary tale regarding the ability to duplicate people, Mickey 17 is just a triumphant tale about a beaten down man who predictably finds more meaning to his existence…
Gripes & Grievances
This leads me to my gripes with Mickey 17, and I want to circle back to the auteur theory from earlier as well. Like I mentioned, Mickey 17 is way, way, way too scattered and tonally all over the place. The satirical elements of Mickey 17 are definitely challenging, and things that have been consistently approached throughout Joon Ho’s career. Those elements being class politics and the negative impact humanity has on other species, stemming from greed. Political satire is something that will always be prevalent in movies, but in the case of Mickey 17, I thought Ruffalo’s performance in this role and the character itself written by Joon Ho was downright terrible. I saw Mickey 17 at a packed screening, and people seemed to enjoy and laugh at the Ruffalo character, but I thought it was so on-the-nose and annoyingly performed that it lacked anything interesting. I think it’s pretty easy to deduce what this character is a commentary on, I get it, and it’s an easy way to go about it. I just find it lazy and tired at this point. That Ruffalo character had a lot of potential to be a genuinely interesting wannabe dictator who in the name of religion, greed or whatever drives him also thrives on the support of his people and becomes a villain that is worth investing in. I look back to characters like Greg Stillson from David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone being one of them. A character that is evil but interesting and has some depth even with an indescribable thirst for absolute power. The character on screen in Mickey 17, like many movies in the 2020s for obvious reasons, takes an overly farcical approach at this type of character that has less than zero depth and I’m begging filmmakers going forward to please find a new wrinkle to make this character more interesting. We get it, but it’s time to flesh these characters out a little more, and stop coloring them in with the same vain and hate where these caricatures are so frequent now that it’s hard to take any bit seriously, even though that’s kind of the point. The packed house seemed to enjoy it, but I’m just tired of it…
The packed house also really seemed to enjoy Pattinson’s performance, which I was actually kind of surprised by. Pattinson’s iteration of Mickey the titular 17th reprint has a voice that is impossibly strange and gets old very quickly. To be honest, I thought the voice was one of the weaker links of the movie. Since this voice handles the narration, it is most likely critical to your enjoyment whether you can or can’t stand the voice. I’m somewhere in between those extremes, I wasn’t impressed, but also not annoyed enough where it affects my opinion too much. The Mickey the 17th character was also really meek and stupid, which everyone got a kick out of as well. Just a purely beaten down waste of space. Which is a strange character for Pattinson. I couldn’t help but think how this movie would have looked with someone who approached the character differently. Pattinson does bring another voice and character into the fold, but to avoid spoilers, we won’t go there…
The Volatility of the Auteur
Back to the auteur theory and how it impacted Mickey 17. I thought that Joon Ho was trying to pack way too much into this movie both tonally and thematically. Who am I to say, but I think he strayed way too far from how this story should have been told, and got caught up trying to cover so many bases that the movie feels very bloated. I believe there could have been some push back to some of the farcical elements to pull it back from parody-land and keep it grounded more in sci-fi black comedy-town. I think it’s great that an all-time filmmaker has the cache to obtain and maintain the final cut on a relatively expensive movie, but with that comes a little bit of up-your-own-assery that most likely won’t play well commercially. If that wasn’t his intent, who cares I guess, as I’m sure this will be a hit amongst most of the critical community, and won’t impact his legacy negatively. But for the sake of auteurs with a singular vision getting the proper budget, freedom and autonomy to do as they please and still get the substantial theatrical release window so their movie can play in theaters, Mickey 17, in my opinion, will be a huge step back in that regard…
With all of that negative stuff said, I actually did think Mickey 17 was a good movie. The strength of it mostly being the filmmaking technique. The movie looks outrageously good, is so creative and keeps your attention. Even though right when the characters open their mouths it gets a little bit tiresome, the movie was beautifully shot enough where I was still impressed by it throughout, and funny enough in spots to keep the energy up. The opening shot of Mickey’s frozen face that leads to a prologue of sorts, then circling back to that same shot once the audience is caught up on Mickey’s past leading to his present, was phenomenal filmmaking technique. Joon Ho has a very specific way of filming creatures, I don’t know how to describe it, but the best way I can is that they look like a visually interesting blend of CGI and practical effects that make creatures that are a blend of real and fake creatures. These creatures are never cartoonish, but they also aren’t based in any reality. The “Creepers” in Mickey 17, the pig in Okja and the loch ness amphibian from The Host are all creatures that would never exist in real life but are also believable in these worlds that are based in reality-adjacent universes. The Creepers plot was the best part of Mickey 17, while the political satire and cautionary clone technology tale aspects of the story take a seat way in the back…
All in All
Overall, I found the premise of Mickey 17 to be worthy of a half hour Twilight Zone episode, that was then subsequently stretched out into a feature film that plays over two hours. I appreciated the audaciousness and enjoyed the movie, had a few laughs, but it just wasn’t my thing, and I came out of it wholly unsatisfied. And considering the on and off screen talent involved, is hugely disappointing. I can’t imagine Mickey 17 ascending to anything more than a sort of forgettable project that involved multiple legends, all of whom aren’t doing their best work here. It’s a good enough movie to enjoy, but the most likely outcome here is Mickey 17 quickly fading into obscurity after fizzling out commercially at the box office, and entering and exiting movie discourse like the Grandpa Simpson hat-on/hat-off meme…
Wicked Horror Rating: 6.5/10
From Warner Bros. Pictures, Mickey 17 is playing exclusively in theaters as of March 7th, 2025.
