I like Science Fiction, I like hard science fiction, I'm starved for great creative science fiction content, so if something comes out that even hints its science based... I'm going to consume it. There was zero chance I wouldn't watch Mickey 17.
I'm very forgiving of my scifi content.... but as Mickey 17 played, I came to realize it wasn't science fiction. Every story beat was a trope right out of WGA playbook, all of it hammering in on a political commentary. But that is ok, lots of great science fiction exists that also has political overtones (gripping hand, dune, etc)... The movie itself had nothing to say about science, fictional or otherwise, every space or science reference was referencing a already established trope with no new spin, thought, or interpretation to apply.
Act 1 - We establish earth is a bleak, environmentally devastated, and run by comic book level crime bosses. Our hero, one of life's push-overs, joins a colony ship expedition to run away from terrestrial problems and to start a new life. Great, I'm invested - where do they take this? - No where.
In Act 2 we establish ourselves on the colony ship and all world building stops, the very contemporaneous political satire is overpowering and unignorable. No consequences of the ship, the journey, are built on or developed. It's a UCB improv sketch where they pulled "Trump" & "In space" from a hat.
The big trouble with being hyper political about a current event is your going to alienate half your audience right off the jump, and if your movie gets delayed past the election (this did!) then its not even relevant anymore, and if you write into your script the strong man loses the election and runs away to another planet.... well, you wrote yourself into a corner and now the movie is no longer topical! Even for the people who hate trump, do they really want to watch a escapism movie fully about trump at every story beat? Your audience is people who don't like Trump, but also like to think about him and where he is taking the country... that is a small audience. Like imagine releasing The Dictator into Libya as your major economic market?
Our printed protagonist, who is a push over - remember, gets a immediate love interest (improv trope) and has whacky hijinks dying over and over and over again on the ship. Really hammering in how little the crew cares for their life. There is a major plot hole here, where the printed iterators of knowledge of the death of their previous number, even though the show established a weekly memory checkpoint is required to make sure they don't lose much memory. The copies should have zero knowledge of the deaths... just weekly gaps in their recollections when printed.
Act 3: Planet side... no character development really has taken place other then the really laying on the political cringe satire of the great leader. Landing happens, Mr Printer gets killed over and over again, and eventually we close the loop on the opening scene callback. At this point I'm not invested at all. Strong leader assumes local lifeforms are hostile, they are not, refuses to listen to Printer who was saved by local life form, the majority of the closing act is 100% focused on the glorious leader acting cringe, being wrong, being comically evil, then dying because of his hubris...
Act 4: Feel good ending with a bow on it. Everyone gets a good ending, the printer is destroyed (really now, when colonizing a ice planet? Being able to reprint critical crew members seems super useful in a survival situation... like the last doctor on the ship). Peace is made with the local animal life, the governing board of the colony elected a new leader (love interest of mr printer) for unclear reasons. I'm not entirely sure, but I think they reprinted one of the lost crew in the closing scenes (one of the bodyguards love interest appears to have returned), but they never established if they had baseline scans of all the crew....
Missed opportunities:
- The printed versions could try to figure out what happens in their memory gaps, and uncover the callous horror of what is happening
- The local lifeforms could have some conflicting interest in the colony ship (rare metals, energy, heat, etc) making the conflict more pressing
- The crew could grow discontent about the abuse of the printed people, or pressure of traveling in space, or food shortages... they hint at this but never take it anywhere
- The stress of setting up a new colony on a ice world when they expected a more hospitable climate could make for stressful command choices and that tension could drive relatable conflict.
- Loss of fidelity for each printout could be a interesting twist
- Someone on the ship making secret copies for weird reasons (sycophants, or to reduce workload, or for a undocumented food resource)
Overall: It's not for me, the science fiction wasn't really there. Its well put together visually, and if you want a parade of scifi tropes, then you could do worse. I give it - ONE MARK RUFFALO
The critical drinker does a great review as well: https://youtu.be/FLze1JuaaqM
Karsten Runquist has a more cinematic review https://youtu.be/jEAGyROITQI
Call me Chato does a inside baseball review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geLGJJeWGio
