Bong Joon-hos Mickey 17 is a galaxy-brained swing that seems destined to become some weirdos favorite movie.
InMickey 17,Robert Pattinsonplays a frozen meat-sickle.
Absolutely everything about this performance and the movie it exists within is a choice.Theyre big ones too.
I, dear reader,was in.
A day later, I still am.
But frankly, I dont care.
Like the film, though, this attention-grabbing start risks getting ahead of ourselves.
So lets step back and explain why Pattinsons dimwitted hero can have such nonchalant indifference to his imminent ingestion.
The Mickey who begins the movie, frozen and meaty, is not the original Mickey.
Its not even a copy of a copy of the original.
This includes Pattinsons O.G.
Mickey, who went to space as much to escape some loan shark debts as to see the universe.
An expendable is a disposable, and renewable, workforce.
A slave by another name.
Due to odd religious restrictions, there can only be one expendable at a time.
Which isnt to say Mickeys life is all doom and gloom.
He makes it back to his colonist ship, even.
And as per the law set down by zealots like Ruffalos Marshall, there can be only one.
This is where things start to get really strange.
They are, however, obliquely amusing.
There is a mirthful meanness toMickeythat is curiously delightful.
Whereas Mickey 17 develops something approaching empathy and self-awareness, he also is as another character suggests soft.
Mickey 18, by contrast, has no awareness but enjoys a hell of a lot stronger survival instinct.
There are also the creature feature elements ofThe Hostand even the pro-animal rights sympathies ofOkja.
Take for instance Mark Ruffalos amalgamation of every insidious, creepy inbred twitch of American conservatism past and present.
Theres even some mouth-breathing followers in their red baseball caps aboard the ship.
Were locusts, it seems to say, doomed to repeat the mistakes and vanities of our ancestors.
Yet the sum is greater than the parts.
A benefit of Bongs narrative layering is viewers are never exactly sure what is about to happen next.
Im a sucker for when these concoctions occur, warts and all.
And like Margot Robbie, count me among thosewho see a cult formingaround Damien ChazellesBabylonbacchanal.
Mickey 17might have a lousy March, but this bizarre passion project feels destined to become someones favorite movie.
For the rest of us, its a pretty wild night at the movies.
Rating:
4 out of 5
