“He’s dying for mankind.” A selfless act that will make him a renowned hero. Someone who will be showered with praise and should have the respect of everyone.
Mickey 17 centers around a man named Mickey (Robert Pattinson). He doesn’t see much value in his current life. Mickey and his “best friend” Timo (Steven Yeun) are also being hunted by the mafia, because Timo took a loan from them for a business idea that didn’t work out. So when Mickey and Timo see sign-ups for a place on a new space exploration program, they figure that this is their chance to start anew.
When signing up for a position on the space expedition, Mickey chooses to be what is called an Expendable. First he has his body and mind scanned and stored in a system. Then he is sent out to perform various tasks and missions that will most certainly end with him dying. After each death, his body is re-printed, his memories re-installed, and he’s ready to go. This continues for a while until he almost dies after falling in a ravine during a patrol on the planet they’re colonizing. But this time, he survives. Once he gets back to his room he finds that the crew thought he had died and re-printed him again, leading to him becoming a “Multiple.” in this world it is illegal for multiple of the same person alive at the same time to exist..
The concept is there, and I love it, but the execution in the plot was the vinegar that fell into the cake mix.
The actors do a great job in the roles they’re given, regardless of the plot. If you’re mad and/or infuriated by the characters, that means the actor did a good job, along with the people who wrote the character as well. Hate is such a strong emotion and is used very effectively in this movie. That can be why the screenwriter (Bong Joon Ho) made Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) the way he is: ignorant, misogynistic, and just stupid. The movie is engaging when Marshalls on screen, because the audience just loves hating him and are waiting for a humiliating downfall.
A good example would be Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a politician and leader of the space expedition. Many people find it hard to connect with his character as he can be described as misogynistic and just plain stupid. For instance, Mickey and a soldier named Kai Katz (Anamaria Vartolomei) are having dinner with Marshall and he tells Kai that she’s a perfect candidate for his vision of a perfect society. The way he delivers the line, like he’s objectively right and has no shame in saying it, serves to make him seem unredeemable.
As Mickey is going through his new lifestyle as an expendable, he ends up falling in love with a woman named Nasha Barridge(Naomi Ackie). The movie dives into their relationship way too thoroughly. This could’ve been the dark-comedy of the movie, but I didn’t find it very humorous. The movie exaggerates their relationship of how much they love each other. For example: they’re both hanging out in a hallway and they’re coming up with different positions to express their affection for one another. It was just very crude and didn’t work in the comedy sense at all.
The ending wasn’t very satisfying because, first, Mickey was voicing over like there was a lesson in all of this nonsense. I’m sure there was, but I was experiencing so much whiplash from the absurdity of the plot that I must’ve missed it.
Secondly, Mickey talks at the end about his weird nightmares about Marshall and being an Expendable, but what’s the point of giving us these problems when the movie is almost over? The film just drags on and on about what everyone is up to – it almost didn’t seem to end.
I didn’t enjoy this movie as much as I wanted to. The actual comedy doesn’t work, as it is mostly crude. I liked the characters and the concept of the movie and would probably watch it again for the same reason, but after paying to see it in theaters, I just didn’t feel like I got my money’s worth. I’d much rather stream it.
