This episode of Armchair Cinema is really political, but Mickey 17 is a really political movie. Can’t talk about the film without getting into contemporary politics.
Here’s my notes/review:
Don’t worry, ladies, there’s finally more than enough Robert Pattinson to go around. And be as rough as you like, they won’t stop bringing him back after death. Each one just as dreamy as the last!
This time around, Robert is playing Mickey, who unwittingly signs up for a space colony initiative that labels him as “expendable.” This means that he is cloned and put into a giant people copier. Every time he dies, he is printed out again with the same memories and personality quirks. This means that the people he works under can use him for whatever purpose, after all, he is expendable.
And in the eyes of an uncaring, all-seeing capitalist society, isn’t that what we all are? We’re all replaceable. If you died right now, your boss would put out a “help wanted” ad as quickly as he could. (Insert joke about Maren replacing me with another awkward white guy here.) Mickey, being an everyman fallen on hard times and forced to work for a rich upper class, he’s an extremely relatable character.
With such dark themes and an emphasis on gallows humor, you’d think this movie would be bleak and unrelentingly grim but it actually has a pretty optimistic message to it. Yes, Mickey represents the expendable worker in a toxic cycle of work and death to appease the ever-hungry rich, but he’s still human. And he’s surrounded by other human workers who can, at any time they choose, seize the means of production.
The villain in this film is a feckless idiot worshipped by other red hat wearing idiots and he surrounds himself with even more idiot yes-men who tell him he’s a genius. Yes, this character might as well be named “Schmonald Schmump” for all the subtlety this character has. One scene has his smarter but equally cruel wife arguing with her husband about whether or not he can shoot Mickey in the head on their luxurious carpet. If you think this movie isn’t trying to speak to you about contemporary politics, you’re probably the type of idiot this movie is making fun of.
That said, I think they could lean into this symbolism a little harder. Director Bong Jong Ho’s previous work, Parasite, was hard hitting while Mickey 17 has a lot more fun with its premise. I wanted to leave the theater with more of a centralized message about capitalism and class warfare, but it seems more focused on telling a satisfying narrative than leaving us with a heavy-handed message.
It also uses a lot of first person narration, which wavers back and forth between being helpful to the story and being detrimental to the story. On one hand, narration in film can be a tool that helps show us things that can’t really be explained well visually. On the other hand, film is a visual medium and relying on narration to tell your story is bad filmmaking. Certain parts of the film could easily be shown but are instead told to us straight up by Mickey himself. While the narration helps us to sympathize with Mickey, it can sometimes obscure parts of the movie that we should have seen.
On the positive side, Robert Pattinson and Naomi Ackie capture the roles they’re playing very well. The Batman proved that Pattinson can act outside of being a teenage heartthrob, Mickey 17 proves that he can do it well. Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette do a damn good interpretation of the perpetually soulless and brainless politicians that lord themselves over the country.
I do recommend the film. It’s a lot of fun in the theater with good characters. But I can’t help but feel this great film could have been a classic had it utilized its medium and thought a little more about the messages it sent.
JStiver.com 