Is Bong Joon-ho okay? I know many people, including filmmakers, are pissed at the new American President. Robert De Niro tried to take a clumsy shot at him with Zero Day - he even used the F-word at the Oscars. Captain America: Brave New World sent muddled political signals, but Marvel has a habit of being incoherent. One suspects that more American filmmakers and films will deliver the cinematic equivalent of the F-word to Donald Trump, and if things like Zero Day and Brave New World indicate anything, these productions could reveal themselves to be "bad films with good intentions." But one expects some level of competence - if not excellence (not every great director can dish out masterpiece after masterpiece) - from the man who stunned us with Memories of Murder, Mother, and Parasite (the Oscar winner). Hence, I was quite shocked by the shoddiness of Mickey 17, which wants to be about so many important issues that it sacrifices depth at the altar of, well, good intentions. Bong Joon-ho has finally lowered himself to the level of a hack. He mostly sleepwalks throughout Mickey 17, and even when he regains consciousness, he acts like someone high on drugs (it could be undiluted oxy). In the middle of his dinner with politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), when Mickey (Robert Pattinson) suddenly starts going through a series of unfortunate events, Bong Joon-ho captures the incident with a mixture of (mild) amusement and detachment. Pattinson throws himself around the screen with zest and commitment, but the director films him with little to no interest in his physicality and comic enthusiasm. Bong Joon-ho records the scene without seeing it. He lets it run forever and undermines the potential of this moment. You initially smile because of Pattinson but start yawning long before the scene reaches its conclusion. I wondered if Bong Joon-ho had slept on the set after screaming, "Action!"
What else could explain the lack of consistent momentum? There are sequences in Mickey 17 that begin with a lot of promise and then slowly descend into the pit of monotony. It's easy to admire those "stormy circles" the creepers create to hide their leader. Bong Joon-ho, though, has visualized the image with a sense of literal-mindedness that fails to infuse a moment like this with awe, creativity, and fervor. Those mini circular tornadoes look as flat as the walls of Kenneth's spaceship. Kenneth is obviously a caricature of Donald Trump. He does that stupid dance, speaks in that silly voice, and gets that bullet mark on his cheek. Ruffalo channels his hatred for Trump in a funny, lively performance. He and Collette have a blast on the screen, while Pattinson, though smashing, seems to be doing his job a little too seriously. Pattinson needed to be looser and more at ease. When he makes that "I am a poor, innocent boy" face, you feel as if he's straining himself a bit to come across as funny. As the 17th version of Mickey, Pattinson is timid and polite. The 18th Mickey, on the other hand, is a tough, violent guy. How were the other Mickeys? A voice-over offers a brief, one-line description of other "print-outs" but doesn't explain what made them behave differently. Why is Mickey 18 different from 17? What triggered this change in him? On the conceptual level, they represent two sides of the same person, and Bong Joon-ho is satisfied with the simple depiction. The director is so busy merely hinting at various things that he shows no enthusiasm for fleshing out his narrative. The movie, through a flashback about a serial killer who had his own multiples, generates portentous questions regarding the identity of the real culprit. The director behaves like a wannabe intellectual who can only play with the crowd because he has no perspective or answers to provide. How should we consider Nasha's (Naomi Ackie) relationship with Mickeys? If she makes love to Mickey 18, does that mean she has cheated on Mickey 17? Can you even say that she has "cheated," considering both the men are Mickey?
Bong Joon-ho doesn't stay long enough on this point to give you a clear answer. Instead, he jumps on the next big thing like those baby creepers who excitedly run here and there. Filmmakers often complain that the audience today has got infected with low attention span, but you can extend the same compliment to the director of Mickey 17 as well. He tosses many things on the screen. He also loses interest in them pretty quickly. One eventually begins to suspect whether the film was made by a Bong Joon-ho who was cloned by a machine. This iteration of him - as a filmmaker - is pretty weak. That dinner scene, for instance, feels as if it were produced by a humanoid that has been fed all the typical beats, scenarios, and tropes of a comedy. As a satire, Mickey 17 hits easy targets without a strong comic energy. It looks like a puny version of Okja when seen through the lens of a message movie. This science fiction comedy isn't terribly good as an action movie, given how much it frustrates you with all those moments where the characters freeze just when they are close to killing their enemies. But Bong Joon-ho hasn't created characters. Rather, he has packed his film with puppets who talk a lot but reveal little. What does Mickey think about Kenneth? Mickey 18 calls him something along the lines of a self-absorbed asshole, but does that mean he is a Democrat or someone who prefers to be "neutral" on the subject of politics? The 17th Mickey asks Kai (Anamaria Vartolomei) if she has changed her shampoo and later, almost comes close to giving her a kiss. Does he have a crush on her? Would he have accepted or even considered Kai's offer to Nasha about taking 17 and leaving the latter with 18? Mickey's voice-overs sound like the moans of a schoolboy - it's supposed to be funny. But Ruffalo and Collette manage to produce more chuckles with mere gestures and subtle inflections in their voice.
This undeveloped, undigested story is splattered across the screen with a cheeky grin. It's the self-satisfied smile of an Academy Award-winning filmmaker taking a vacation to celebrate his win. Mickey 17 is nothing but an expensive - $118 million - celebration party where the director, like the Oscars ceremony and most Oscar-winning films, glibly discusses important societal issues with all the jazz, ostentation, and vibrancy. How does it feel to die? Don't ask Mickey. He only has a generic answer - something like, "It pains a lot - it's irritating." No shit. Don't even ask Bong Joon-ho. He's too preoccupied with basking in glory, so much so that he has made something so inconsequential that you can throw it in the fiery pit with those other Mickeys.
Final Score- [4/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times