Beyond the sci-fi comedy starring Robert Pattinson, in the story of a man who gets reprinted in 3D every time he dies — and comes out of the machine with the same quirks and patterns of a regular paper printer — there lies a profound film about learning to live with all parts of our personality — even those we may not always like.
Before watching Bong Joon-ho’s latest Mickey 17, I did something I hardly ever do: I read a review. Big mistake! Turns out reviewers, especially the one I chanced upon from a well-respected newspaper, take things very literally. They fail to view the nuances of cinema. But worse yet, this reviewer made me squirm before I even entered the IMAX theater. There were mentions of someone’s face being eaten off in the first half of the film and I kept jumping in my seat as I’d also read the word “horror” in their review. I’m not a horror film kinda girl, I tell you. Too vivid an imagination.
Turns out, to my complete and utter viewing pleasure, that Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 is much less “sci-fi horror” and much more outer space comedy, but also incorporates important tropes from our modern times to create a film which proves both charming and haunting in its message. Make that messages.
I won’t bore you here with a review, as my colleague Rich Cline has one phenomenal one on his site, Shadows on the Wall, where he gives the film four stars. What I will do instead is give you a short intro to the story and then tell you about my views on the film’s message.
What is Mickey 17 about?
In the year 2054, the naive Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) finds himself involved in a scheme that forces him to seek refuge on another planet. Unable to emigrate — remember that word for future reference, it’s important — as everyone seems to have had the same idea, at the same time as him, Mickey signs on as an “expendable”, someone whose disposable life, or lives, will help the evil leader Kenneth (Mark Ruffalo), his slimy wife Ylfa (Toni Collette) and their crew of misfit scientists repopulate, on this apparently inhospitable planet far, far away.
Mickey meanwhile, each time he’s killed off, comes back better and stronger, thanks to a 3D copier which uses scraps of human flesh and a lava molten sludge to reprint him, complete with his own memories and personality. To those who used Xerox copiers in their youth, hint: I did, the way Mickeys come out of the “oven” is really the epitome of vintage humor.
Anyway, it also turns out that each time Mickey comes out, fresh as new from the machine, his personality is subject to a bit of a change. Again, more on that later.
One day, while out on a mission in the frozen tundra, he falls through a polar crevice and is left for dead. At first, the indigenous inhabitants of the planet — creatures of all sizes which are a cross between a Dune’s sandworm, an armadillo and hairy centipedes — seem to be coming after him to eat him, but instead, help him out to safety. When he returns to his room, Mickey 17 discovers that Mickey 18 has already been reprinted, complete with a more aggressive personality, and thus the adventure begins. Oh, and not to be forgotten, both Mickeys, thanks to their memories being stored, are in love with the gutsy Nasha, a security officer played by Naomi Ackie.
Why is Robert Pattinson the perfect casting coup?
Before getting into the personal, let me just say that Pattinson is PHE.nomenal in this film! His nuances, his eyes which betray exactly who he is at each moment of the story, even while both Mickeys are dressed alike, all makes for a big part of what brings it all home, particularly when it comes to the third theme I connected with when I watched the film.
A Trumpian villain? Yes please.
The three themes which make a film that could easily have turned into silly mush into a grand movie with an important message have to do with our current lives on this big, wild earth of ours. For one, we have our very own Kenneth in the form of President Trump and so it’s not so difficult for us to understand where the film is going and what it implies. It was very prophetic of the talented Bong to predict that his film would come out in the age of Trump, and perhaps one of the reasons its release was postponed by Warner Bros. was exactly this. I can’t imagine watching Mickey 17 with either Biden or Harris at the helm of my adoptive country and feeling the same pangs of “what have we done to the land of the free!” while watching the film.
Could there be a better time to explore the colonialist theme?
The second brilliant theme is also related to the above and the abuse that our own live President is spreading around the world, like telling the Palestinians in Gaza what to do with their land, etc. etc. I mean, does he not remember, ever, that Americans are guests in their own land? And that these beautiful valleys and green planes belonged to the Natives of the USA… Once upon a time. When Ruffalo speaks of destroying the critters on their own planet, he’s really digging his finger into the wound of generations of abuse towards indigenous people everywhere. Worldwide — because that forced displacement of those born on their own land isn’t just an American monopoly, it belongs to every self-entitled nation around the world. Bong — himself the product of South Korea, a country which until the end of WWII was colonized by the Japanese — hits it home with this theme, making the film an important watch.
Learn to love yourself, all of you, thanks to Bong Joon-ho.
Theme number three is a more personal leitmotif. A nuanced idea that I felt more deeply, because every single one of us has a part of their being, their personality or their outward appearance that we dislike. We can’t change it easily but what we can do is learn to love that part of us, live with it, as Mickey 17 may or may not do with the next 3D version of himself Mickey 18. And ultimately, it may even turn out that our worst trait, what we love the least about ourselves, becomes what saves us in the end. Remember these words.
In a world of films that spoon feed us how to feel and what we should be taking away from them, Mickey 17 is a masterpiece of open interpretation, left entirely to its audience and how much — or how little! — they wish to walk away with after watching it.
Mickey 17 is adapted from the novel ‘Mickey7’ by Edward Ashton. The film is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. and is now playing in UK and US cinemas.