Mickey 17
Perhaps one of the most hotly anticipated movies of the year, Mickey 17, Bong Joon Ho's follow-up to the acclaimed masterpiece Parasite, is... weird. Its undoubtably fits in with the rest of his filmography, the thematic elements running through the film are a continuation of themes he's been exploring his entire career and it's almost genre less as it bounces from social commentary to slapstick comedy. Yet, something holds this film back and I sadly left feeling quite underwhelmed.
What did work was the comedy. This thing is balls to the wall hilarious. It has elements of Chaplin era comedy, along with modern sensibilities and some really brilliant characters who are clearly satirising our world. The comedy is brought to life by the magnificent performances from the entire cast. Robert Pattinson in particular is outstanding as Mickey Barnes, in every single version of him.
The way his performance is able to morph completely depending on the version of Mickey he is playing is so impressive. It's a masterclass in vocal and physical comedy. It's the reason this film works as well as it does.
There's a number of other good performances, really enjoyed Naomi Ackie's performance and her opposition to Mickey 17 as a person, the way they contrasted themselves was great and how that changed with Mickey 18 was super intriguing.
Mark Ruffalo is doing his best Trump x Musk hybrid and it oddly feels tame - a sign that the times we're living in are comedically absurd that a performance this outlandish feels tame. His wife, played by the ever-wonderful Toni Collette, was equally as comedic.
However, aside from the hilarious comedy, I felt very little towards this. Thematically, sadly, it's painfully obtuse. If you walk out of this not knowing the commentary that is being made about Western society, capitalism and class I seriously worry. It was so heavy handed in its exploration of these themes and didn't feel like it was cutting below the surface. Given that this is coming from a director who does normally have such sharp social commentary I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.
This is not to say that the film had to go deeper and end up with something profound that none of us had been thinking of, but I just feel like it thematically runs quite thin towards the end. It's a shame cause I think a level of interest in this film requires you to be interested in what it has to say about our world, but I mean we're all living through these insane times and if you have engaged with any sort of critical thinking about the way our society is right now, I sadly think there's very little here that you will get from it.
The film feels bitty and not cohesive, like the ingredients are there but it just doesn’t all come together to make a satiating meal. There's some interesting ideas which do crop up but they're never really pushed in any interesting direction, if often feels quite samey like we end on the same point like there's nothing more to say.
The premise immediately lends itself to quite relevant social commentary, I mean Mickey is referred to as an "expendable" I wonder what that's commentary for. I just needed a little more depth when it came to exploring ideas.
Sadly, it's also really poorly paced. The initial opening is so exposition heavy, I enjoyed it's editing but it is sadly messy and the rest of the film never really finds it's pacing. There's also a bunch of questions which crop up that are just never answered or explored which was annoying when it feels like it was pulling on the same idea and yet there were ideas in here which were interesting.
This certainly feels like a film made by Bong Joon Ho. The themes are very similar to his previous work, he's clearly interested in exploring these ideas. There is a level of social commentary, and real characters who exist at the same time as characters. Genre less filmmaking which is always thrilling and some gorgeous visuals, but it's just missing something... some sauce some might say. Myabe the best Wilhelm Scream