Mickey 17 (2025)
He’s dying to save mankind.
Science fiction is tonight’s name of the game. Space, future, technology, and oddly enough a lot of the same old problems. This one isn’t really getting super crazy well scored places, and I thing I might have a sneaking suspicion as to part of why that might be. Anyways, I’m geared up for cleaning out more of the backlog, and what better time then when a movie goes onto a service where I don’t need to rent or buy it? Read your contracts, tonight we look at Mickey 17.
Realistically, we get a view of pretty much all the Mickey chain, but this one focuses on 17. In the future, they’ve learned to print people - download your memories into a brick, and use the old recycled garbage blend to spit out a fully functioning new would-be human. That brings up all manner of ethics issues - especially when one of the creators of the tech prints copies of himself and goes about murdering homeless folks and using his copies as alibis - which brings a distinct dark cloud over “multiples” or having multiple copies of the same person at once. Of course, you can’t just throw away such high potential technology, and so it’s to be used very safely on a expansion to a far off planet - enter Mickey, whose looking to run from some loan shark problems on Earth and largely not the smartest person around.
Our actors do a pretty good job here - although I will point out that this might be part of why the scores seem a bit worse than you would think after just watching the movie. Our lead guy can be a bit mundane about things - doing a fine job but almost like listening to one of those laid back ASMR talking videos where it’s not overly energetic with it’s delivery. I guess you’d really probably get that way after dying 16 times however. Really, there’s nothing bad here - although some do get over the top and there’s a feeling of goofiness about even some of the serious characters at times, like it knows despite the subject matter it’s still kind of an out-there idea. Where does the contention come from? Oh, probably with how a certain “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” actor plays the religious/political front man a little bit too orange for some people to not get riled up about. As a largely political-avoidant person (the stuff just isn’t for me), I see the similarities and get a chuckle about it, but I could totally see some people letting it overshadow the fun of other characters and situations.
The characters aren’t horrible. The lead does, in some ways, get to advance to a different state by the end of the movie from where he started. Coming to terms with things or drastic changes might be a little bit of an oversell, but it’s nice to see them in a different spot and using things they are experiencing - even in a two person split when we hit the multiples section - getting plenty of angles on a given viewpoint. Side characters do their thing, but admittedly outside of some somewhat minor moral dilemmas I don’t think most really have a major feeling of impact on the plot. Heck, even the lead lady (who does get to do a decent amount in the movie and end in a different role than she started) could be argued feels like she has less impact on the plot than you would expect, given how much she actually contributes to the end of the movie - but I think it’s just because the whole 17 and 18 situation gets so much active time that it always feels as though one way or another the main is involved. So yeah, we have a handful that do get to do more than just be background - but there are still a lot more than that who are background.
Your a brick Harry.
Being science fiction, it means we get to have a couple of different fancy things. There’s a few weapons in there, ranging from normal everyday handgun to flamethrowers and a kitted-up camera looking bazooka. Food paste is also a thing, so there’s a big old playground for props and things to interact with. Costumes are a mix of not too futuristic but also not too everyday - in that same sense where a pair of coveralls in Star Wars is suddenly a Mandalorian jump suit and not just what you picked up from the tractor place. It provides plenty to look at without being overly distracting. It’s also relatively easy to distinguish characters from one another, if in nothing more but role or class, although for 17 and 18 it plays more on how the actor portrays the two as opposed to their actual costume.
Effects wise you get quite a bit. There’s plenty of blood, although far less gore for those with squeamish stomachs. Arguably, I think most the more violent action takes place against the resident aliens - who in this case would actually be the original inhabitants of the planets as opposed to the humans who would be the aliens, but we’ll call them the aliens as it’s alien to us ya dig? So, the aliens are a weird blend of bug, armadillo, and Cthulu - adorable puppy like little things, but also a bit gross and weird. They help cause our multiples event, but also come into play during our finale, so you’ll get to see them in all sorts of light and sizes and detail, and it all looks pretty good. All the effects looked fine or better in my opinion, so I don’t really think there is a ton of stuff to complain about there. If you had to complain about one thing there, I guess it would probably be that snow planet is snow planet and doesn’t really offer a ton of variety to look at - but most the movie takes place inside the main spaceship anyways, so you’ll be getting lots of corridors and science labs.
Audio was good. Balance was fine - no problems hearing things, even when a bunch is going on at once. Humor is going to be subjective as always - like how some might find our main villain to be laughable, whereas others will be offended because his portrayal is a bit too close to someone they support. It’s largely situational or perhaps somewhat slapstick - largely not something like puns and poop jokes. It would probably help to have a little bit of a sense of dark humor to get the most mileage out of it. For the thinking person, there’s way too much for my unqualified self to get into, but there’s plenty of political and religious shenanigans to go with the classic morals of letting someone die for science.
Look at all da babies.
The movie was pretty enjoyable if you ask me. It did have it’s slow moments, which I largely figured it would given that I thought it was supposed to be a more drama oriented movie with some moments of comedy. The comedy being hit or miss and the main villains performance will probably be a large section of turn on or offs for viewers, and beyond those it’s a competent little sci-fi bit with some things to comment on about where humanity is and could be like any good movie looking to the future. It’s got a twisted sense of humor, which i can appreciate, but all the effects look pretty good and the actors are doing a pretty decent job with their characters. I won’t go as far as to say you won’t see this or that coming, but when you’ve seen a lot of movies I feel like most the time things don’t truthfully get by you without at least an inkling before hand - so that could just be a watcher issue at this point. Looks fine, sounds fine, had some real fun moments and some slow moments.