In a Hollywood landscape that doesn’t give audiences too many big-budget sci-fi space adventures, “Mickey 17” looked to be a shining star outside of the “Dune” and “Alien” franchises.
Unfortunately, the film is so entangled in humorless performances and characters who are too thinly written to be considered legitimate satire that even a star performance from Robert Pattison couldn’t save it.
Pattinson plays Mickey, an expendable on a spaceship who does all the dangerous jobs because, if he dies, they just re-print his body and upload his memories so he can start fresh again. It’s a great concept based on a novel called Mickey 7, written by Edward Ashton.
Where “Mickey 17” could have been a vehicle for fascinating questions about the human soul, cloning ethics, and the meaning of life, audiences are instead given a bloated film that focuses way too heavily on dull caricatures.
Mark Ruffalo plays the leader of the spaceship, a wealthy failed politician named Kenneth Marshall. He’s brash and foolish. Audiences will recognize right away that he’s supposed to be a stand-in for a Donald Trump-esque character. Toni Collette plays his wife, Ylfa.
Ruffalo and Collette’s characters are so poorly written that they wouldn’t even make the cut for a “Saturday Night Live” skit. And yet, the film wastes about a third of its runtime on their daft, pointless roles.
Everything that goes wrong in “Mickey 17” can be traced back to Kenneth and Ylfa. They are a blight on what should have been a brilliant science fiction adventure. To make matters worse, all of their dedicated scenes bloat the runtime to a miserable two hours and 17 minutes.
Pattinson plays double duty as two different clones in the film, and he clearly gives it his all. When the film centers on Mickey, it’s not hard to see what the story could have been without the baggage of Ruffalo and Collette. Mickey is a traumatized guy who does thankless work, and Pattinson owns the role.
Naomi Ackie plays Mickey’s girlfriend, Nasha Barridge. Her chemistry with Pattinson is impeccable. The way she constantly finds his humanity, which the rest of the crew has carelessly discarded, is magical. The movie is fun when they’re together. If only the film had been centered entirely on Nasha and Pattinson, “Mickey 17” would have been great.
Unfortunately, the movie was more interested in stale jokes and dull characters than exploring the philosophy of cloning and the value of life.
