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Mickey 17 (2025)

Mickey 17 is the first film from Bong Joon Ho since the amazing Parasite and is based on the novel Mickey 7. The story sees Mickey Barnes who joins a program that will clone him to do the grunt work and when he dies there will be another one but when he survives and the company think that he has died they create a new one and there is a rule about duplicates and the film then becomes a battle between the two Mickeys and the company.

I went into this film not thinking that this film would be as good as Parasite. Parasite is a perfect film and this at best was going to be a close second. There are things to like about this film including Robert Pattinson. Pattinson is very likeable in this film and it's hard to believe how far he has come since the Twilight days. Here he has to play two different versions of himself and make them work. The horrible version of him is likeable enough so that when he ends up dying it does feel like a sad moment. His nicer version is the one that we want to see make it to the end and get the life he deserves. There is a nice aspect of the plot that his life is a result of a bad decision when he pressed a red button that led to his mother’s death. Naomi Ackie is also very good in this as the only person that seems to care about Mickey. Last time I saw Ackie was in Blink Twice which she was good in and here she continues to show what a good actress she is. 

The film isn't perfect as they do waste Steve Yeun who pops up every so often and does contribute to the story but I would have liked to see more of him. The biggest problem with the film is Mark Ruffalo. I can remember how impressed I was with his performance in Poor Things and yet it seems like he has gone backwards with this. It’s undeniable that he is doing what I think he thinks is a Trump performance and it's just boring now when people do a parody of Trump, even if he hadn't won the election in 2024, it would have been an eye rolling performance. There was potential to make him a decent villain but either the director or Ruffalo himself thought this was ok. Even Toni Collette is a bit of a let down as she is just there to be the one that is pushing Marshall to do certain things but she is never presented as being the main villain but she gets overshadowed by Ruffalo’s performance.

Despite these few issues, the film is as good as I hoped it would be. There are things that are very Bong Joon ho and these add to the quality of the film. The effects of the creepers is very good and the fact that they are portrayed as not being terrorising monsters works very well. The film has hints of Starship Troopers and Moon which are good films to include in this film and overall the film works because of the central performances from Pattinson and Ackie. I think the way that the film is pitched might put some people off but I think that it deserves people’s time as it's a fun two hour film and shows that Bong Joon ho is a very good director.


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