Plot
Earth 2050; Mickey and his pal Timo owe money to a loan shark – so they board an intergalactic space mission to deep outer space to get away from him.
Timo is going to be a pilot, whereas Mickey signs up to the the ships ‘Expendable’ – the one they send on missions to die, but be ‘reprinted’ with all his memories (updated weekly) if anything does happen.
Mickey 1 is an empath, he’s nice, quiet and shy. He soon meets Nasha, and the pair fall in love – and she loves all the Mickey’s who come back – including the current, Mickey 17.
When Mickey 17 goes out on a mission one day, and doesn’t come back – Mickey 18 is printed. He’s different, louder, slightly obnoxious, and confident… but then Mickey 17 comes back to work.
Direction
Directed by Korean film maker Bong Joon Ho, and this is the first of his films I have reviewed.
Cast
Robert Pattinson plays Mickey Barnes (or Mickey 17 & 18) throughout the film. Despite what I will write from heroin, this is an exceptionally well acted film by him. I never watched the sparkly vampire movies, but from what I have seen of his, he has great talent!
Naomi Ackie plays Nasha – who is both Mickey’s love interests. She also plays an important role on the ship itself.
Steven Yeun plays Timo, Mickey’s friend from Earth.
Toni Collette plays Ylfa, the wife of the ships captain – who seemingly controls things behind the scenes.
Mark Ruffalo plays Kenneth Marshal, who is the ships captain, a former politician who has ‘grand’ designs for the planet they are headed to.
Breakdown
The film starts with a non linear narrative (narrated by Pattinson’s Mickey 17) when he has a near death experience. This leads him into explaining to us the audience, who he is, how he and his buddy Timo wound up on the ship – and the objective to head to the Planet Niflheim in order to colonlise it.
We also see from the screenplay that this is going to be quite a funny movie, with several laugh out loud moments early in the film.
Mickey signs up to be an “Expendable” without reading the contract, which means he is the person who must do the tasks/experiments that will probably kill him – but he will be ‘reprinted’ immediately after by an actual printer. His memories get updated weekly, so he never actually remembers dying (despite getting asked by everyone ‘what is it like to die?).
There is also a slightly comical back back story of the creator of the printer, and how he was a closet serial killer – and how he created three of himself so he could be in ‘three places ate once’ for his alibi.
The second half of the film, where Mickey 18 is printed while Mickey 17 is still alive, should have been about the implications of multiples being present at the same time. There are some minor subplots, like Nasha wanting to have both Mickey’s for herself (if you know what I mean), and not sharing them with another shipmate who has a crush on Mickey 17.
Instead it then turns into a political satire, with a dumb leader (played by the usually impressive Mark Ruffalo giving a clearly Trumpian performance that sound more like Andy Garcia). He also has a cringe-worthy moment earlier in the film where he and wife Collette have a religious singalong – after explaining he wants the planet to be ‘whites only’.
This is inherently where my issue with the movie is, as it doesn’t really have one clear agenda of narrative. There is the love story between Nasha and Mickey’s, the implication of multiples living at the same time, there colonisaiton of the planet by “President” Marshal (or dictator?). There are also a small handful of subplots involving Yuen’s Timo such as his being hunted, and found, by the loan shark’s men four years after leaving earth, plus his drug dealer arc too.
There is a final epilogue that goes on and on where the colonisation occurs – that should have been reduced. The film sadly doesn’t know how to end.
Overall
Despite some great performances (Pattinson), some always delivers (Yeun/Collette), and some mixed narrative (Ruffalo) – it is the mixed narrative that is a miss for me.
There doesn’t really feel like one clear idea the film wants to stick to, instead it is a jumbled mixture – that at times don’t go anywhere, don’t really make sense, or are either boring or annoying.
Far from a fail, but not one I’d watch again. However, on my podcast we have differing opinions – so please check that out!
3/5
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