The endless deaths and rebirths of Robert Pattinson. Review of the film Mickey 17

In 2022, Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho, became the first non-English language film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. The achievement is significant and the director fully deserves it. His Memories of Murder alone is definitely worth considering and paying attention, and this is a 2003 film. That is, Bong Joon-ho spent a long time honing his own style to perfection.

However, after Parasite, the natural question arose - what next? This "next" turned out to be a science fiction story with Robert Pattinson in the lead role, based on Edward Ashton's book Mickey7 about the ability to revive a person and the consequences associated with this fact. And even though Mickey 1" is definitely not an Oscar contender, and there is not much left of the book here, the film is still able to entertain, surprise and evoke a whole range of different emotions.

The film's title character, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), due to personal troubles, becomes a participant in a human printing program. Now, after each death, his body will be printed anew, as well as all the memories of his "predecessor" will be downloaded into it. It sounds like ideal immortality, but in reality, Mickey is constantly used in a space expedition to test various substances on him and assign the most dangerous tasks. Of course, no one really cares about the safety and survival of the protagonist. However, even the perfect reproduction machine is not immune from the human factor, which can turn the entire expedition upside down.

The trailers and the description of the film already hinted at its more entertaining nature. Mickey 17 immediately presents itself as a black comedy, in which the main character unobtrusively and ironically comments on all the troubles around. And he does it extremely well, so you will laugh regularly while watching. However, Mickey 17 is not just a comedy. Frankly speaking, it is not pure science fiction, nor is it even a social commentary, as Bong Joon-ho often likes to do in his works. The film combines so many thoughts, styles, genres and approaches to cinema that trying to drive it into any kind of framework is a rather pointless exercise. And this is also a very rare case when trailers do not spoil anything at all, on the contrary - they mislead the audience, in order to shock them later.

Very often, films that play with such a variety of genres and ideas are called "messy", underestimating their rating because of this, but Mickey 17 stands out in this regard. Yes, there is a lot of everything in the film, which makes even two or more hours feel like a full three. However, each theme, each scene looks organic, successfully fits into the general context of the story and forms its foundation. The only criticism that can be made is the excessive flirtation with comedy in places, however, and this can be attributed to the director's style.

The director's unique perspective on the methods by which stories should be told and shown makes watching Mickey 17 a real extravaganza of emotions. Literally in one scene you can be scared, moved, laughed at and made to think. Bong Joon-ho successfully experiments with your emotions, just like scientists in a film with the main character. And in both cases, no one will stand on ceremony, keep that in mind.

The theme of death and artificial rebirth is not new to science fiction, but Mickey 17 still finds something new in it. Death in the story tries to become commonplace, but it does not fully establish itself in this status. Its weight and risk are constantly transformed during the story, which makes you genuinely worry about Mickey even considering the unique circumstances of his life. Tension in general quickly becomes one of the central emotions, but it constantly merges with other feelings and thoughts, which is why viewing does not exhaust the audience at all.

And already in the first third of the film it will turn out that the theme of death is not at all central in Mickey 17. More precisely, it is important in the context of the main character's relationships with other characters, but the overall situation focuses more on the social and political aspects of human existence. Yes, Jun-Ho even inserted a bit of Parasite into the science fiction story about the founding of a new colony on an inhospitable planet. And in addition - some elements from Don't Look Up. At the same time, the director was careful to say that all coincidences with real politicians are a coincidence, but the parallels with the real world - to be specific, with Donald Trump - are impossible not to notice.

Watching Mickey's adventures becomes especially enjoyable thanks to Robert Pattinson's acting. The latter has long established himself as a talented actor, back during the premiere of The Lighthouse or even earlier, and Mickey 17 allows us to watch him again with delight. Pattinson plays two dissimilar roles at once, the difference between which he conveys even with accents and intonations. However, you won't hear this in the Ukrainian localization, so I advise you to think about watching the original version.

And Mickey 17 captivates the screens with its "thieves". The characters of Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette seem caricatured at first, but over time their images acquire their own "distorted" depth. And reality has shown that such characters are not fiction at all. However, even in them the director and screenwriters find an interesting charm, which manifests itself in some scenes.

Perhaps the secret is that Jun-Ho again shot a story about people first and foremost, although he wrapped it in a fancy wrapper of science fiction and themes for every taste. Of course, not all moments received a decent disclosure, and individual plot elements exist only for the convenience of the characters and the development of the script. You notice this, but the impression does not become worse from this. After all, Mickey 17, even with minor flaws, continues to be a unique film that can be described and analyzed for hours, but it is better to see it once.