I was ready for this one, but not in the way you’d think. I mean, how was Bong Joon Ho going to follow up one of the best movies of the 21st Century? He wasn’t ever going to hit that level with the very next film, so I was ready for Mickey 17 to be more of a Snowpiercer type of Bong experience. By and large, that’s the energy you should go into Mickey 17 with: and you’ll have a great time watching a master filmmaker get back to those weird roots.
A civilization creating voyage is on its way to Niflheim, to start a new colony of humans. The “captain” of this voyage is power couple Kenneth (Mark Ruffalo) and Ylfa (Toni Collette) Marshall, power hungry religious mega believers ready to build a world of their design. Many of their true believers are on board like Arkady (Cameron Britton) the Science department head and head of security Zeke (Steve Park). But underneath that level are a mish mesh of people looking for new starts, like security agent Nasha (Naomi Ackie), debt evader Timo (Steven Yeun), fresh start seeker Kai (Anamaria Vartolomei), and expendable Mickey (Robert Pattinson), who is there to be a guinea pig for dangerous activities, die, then be reprinted back to life to do it all over again.
Bong Joon Ho movies are special because of their bold storytelling choices. All of his films have some big story pivot in the middle; the movies succeed if you go with the pivot, or fall apart if they don’t work for you. Mickey 17’s pivot, without spoiling, chooses to spread the story into many directions, diverging from the relatively linear tale we were on for the first hourish. At least that sprawl is organic: our talented director builds a host of themes into this sci-fi tale, and starts doling them out to the various characters in the film. The biggest issue here is time: we only have so much length of movie to get the story to its conclusion, making some of the choices rushed and a bit of a jumble. The end result never gels the way we want it to, going for spectacle instead. For a journeyman director, Mickey 17 would be a welcome delight; for Bong Joon Ho, it’s a bit of a letdown knowing the heights he can reach when he’s right.
The cast is at least game for what the director’s asking for. Robert Pattinson nails one of his best performances to date: he’s got a LOT of arcs resting on his character building shoulders, and he again proves he’s up to the task, because he’s one of our great working actors today. Splitting the “eccentric lunatic despot” Bong quota are Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette. Ruffalo is a mixture of Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and RFK Jr., great at spewing smartish sounding dialogue built on a house of cards. Collette is a cable news talking head and a mob enforcer spouse, obsessed with nonexistent issues and pushing society forward with her at the head of the table, sauces in hand. Naomi Ackie gets well deserved attention as the leading lady, arguably the real hero of this tale, but via her strange, interesting takes on Nasha. Anamaria Vartolomei, Steven Yeun, Cameron Britton and everyone else happily play overqualified support, happy to be in a Bong Joon Ho movie and make some bold choices with their roles.
At least Mickey 17 wasn’t Eternals. Hopefully Bong’s next movie has more cohesive storytelling shifts than he does here. More importantly, for the Bong Joon Ho/Park Chan Wook Korean director king of the film movie battles, Wook is ahead now, since Decision to Leave is a near masterpiece. I have the score at 4 – 4 tie for great films. But, Wook’s No Other Choice is out this fall. Uh oh, we might have a new leader in the clubhouse soon!