MICKEY 17 : Tuesday 11th March 2025.

I saw the M Rated 'MICKEY 17' earlier this week and this Sci-Fi black comedy film is Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Bong Joon-ho, whose prior feature film credits take in his debut with 'Barking Dogs Never Bite' in 2000 and then the likes of 'The Host' in 2006, 'Mother' in 2009, 'Snowpiercer' in 2013 his English language debut, 'Okja' in 2017 and the critically lauded and multi-award winning 'Parasite' in  2019. This film is based on the 2022 novel 'Mickey7' by Edward Ashton, and saw its World Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in mid-February, before being theatrically released in South Korea on 28th February and later Stateside and here in Australia last week. It has garnered generally favourable critical reviews, and has so far grossed US$59M from a production budget of US$118M. 

It is 2054, and Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his best friend Timo (Steven Yeun) are financially well and truly broke after a failed business venture that saw them borrowing money to open up a chain of macaron stores. Unable to repay a murderous loan shark, the pair decide to flee Earth by signing up as crew for a spaceship that leaves our little blue planet to colonise the planet Niflheim, a journey that will take them four-and-a half years. Timo signs up as a shuttle pilot and Mickey as the spaceship's only 'Expendable'. Using Earth-banned technology to clone Mickey and restore his memories, Mickey is treated as disposable, given lethal assignments that mere mortals would never dare contemplate, and then reprinted after death - time after time after time. 

During the voyage, a romance develops between Mickey and security agent Nasha (Naomi Ackie). Some four years pass and the spaceship eventually arrives at snow bound and wintery Niflheim. Using Mickeys 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 the spaceship's scientists finally develop a vaccine against Niflheim's air borne pathogens. Mickey 17, the seventeenth version of Mickey, is given the task of capturing one of the planets giant woodlice-like alien creatures (termed 'creepers') for scientific analysis. In doing so, he falls into a deep fissure in the ice, beyond the reach of Timo, who leaves and reports Mickey 17's death. However, the creepers arrive en masse and collectively push Mickey 17 out of the fissure, for him to return almost unscathed to the spaceship.

Mickey 17 returns to the spaceship, cleans himself up and flops on to his bed only to be greeted by the very recently printed Mickey 18 (Robert Pattinson), who is much more confident and aggressive. As the expedition's leader, twice failed politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), has vowed to kill any 'Multiples' (simultaneously living clones), Mickey 18 tries to kill Mickey 17, who resists and is then interrupted by Timo. Mickey 18 then tries to kill Timo, but is interrupted and leaves with Nasha, who believes she is leaving with Mickey 17. Mickey 17 in the meantime is brought to dinner with Marshall, his wife Ylfa (Toni Colette), and security guard Kai Katz (Anamaria Vartolomei). Mickey 17 suffers severe pain after being served experimental meat and being treated with experimental painkillers. Kai intervenes to stop Marshall from putting a bullet in his head. Kai later woos Mickey 17, who flees.

Nasha learns of the Mickeys and accepts them both. When Mickey 17 tells Mickey 18 what happened over dinner with the Marshall's, an enraged Mickey 18 decides to kill Marshall at a public ceremony commemorating a huge chunk of Niflheim rock. Chaos ensues when two baby creepers emerge from the rock that had just moments before been lasered in half. Mickey 17 arrives and captures creeper Zoco, but creeper Luko jumps onto Marshall and is shot to pieces by Kai and other security agents. Nasha stops Mickey 18 from killing Marshall, who discovers the Multiples. Mickey 17, Mickey 18 and Nasha are arrested, and locked up. Thousands of creepers arrive outside the ship, calling out to Zoco.

Locked up in their respective cells Mickey 17's description of the creepers helping him escape from the fissure makes Nasha realise they are not hostile. Timo tries to kill Mickey 17 to satisfy the loan shark who has seemingly caught up with him even on Niflheim, but Nasha and Mickey 18 overpower him. The Mickeys and Nasha are brought to Marshall, who wants to exterminate all the creepers. Marshall destroys Mickey's stored memories, while Nasha saves Zoco from being executed by Ylfa. Marshall's assistant Preston (Daniel Henshall) persuades Marshall to task the Mickeys to compete in collecting creeper tails, which Ylfa wants one hundred of for making edible sauce, with the winner being allowed to live. The Mickeys are forced to wear remote-detonated bomb vests to ensure they comply with the instructions.

When the Mickeys are sent out into the frozen snow-bound wasteland surrounding the ship, they peacefully seek out the creepers' leader, which prompts Marshall to go outside himself with a security team and Preston ready to film the unfolding events for a live broadcast, and with the intention of personally killing all the creepers. Using a translation device manufactured by sympathetic scientist Dorothy (Patsy Ferran), Mickey 17 communicates with the creepers' leader, informing on Marshall's plan. The creepers' leader threatens to kill all humans, unless Zoco is returned alive and one human is killed to compensate for Luko's death.

Mickey 17 tells Nasha via camera to free Zoco. Nasha takes Ylfa hostage to ensure Zoco's release. Nasha releases Ylfa, who tries to kill Zoco, but Nasha again saves him. The security agents arrest Ylfa. Nasha returns Zoco to the creepers' leader, while Mickey 18 fights Marshall and detonates the bomb planted on his vest, killing himself and Marshall to fulfil the demand by the creepers' leader. Afterwards Ylfa commits suicide in a psychiatric ward, while Preston and other Marshall collaborators are imprisoned. An associate of the loan shark tries to kill Timo, but Timo manages to kill him. Nasha is later elected as a colony political leader. She presides over a groundbreaking ceremony on Niflheim where it is now spring time, where Mickey 17 (now to be known as 'Mickey Barnes') detonates the cloning device to symbolically end the Expendable programme, but not before he had a vision of a reprinted Ylfa and Marshall.

Director, Producer and Writer Bong Joon-ho has here delivered us a darkly comedic Sci-Fi satire set in the near future on some distant planet far far away that is a times absurdist, thought provoking, a social commentary, and an environmental essay while exploring the class divide and providing us with a bit of a creature feature too along the way. Robert Pattinson gives possibly a career best performance as the various Mickey's, ably supported by a scene chewing Mark Ruffalo channeling a certain POTUS and an equally on point Toni Collette serving up his unhinged yet domineering sauce loving wife. Visually the film looks the part too, but the plot meanders along and it overstays its welcome just a tad at a 137 minute run time, and I came out of the movie theatre feeling a little 'meh'!

'Mickey 17' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

BLINK TWICE : Tuesday 27th August 2024

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'BLINK TWICE' earlier this week, and this American psychological thriller film is Co-Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Zoe Kravitz in her Directorial debut. The film was released last week too in the US, has so far grossed US$17M from a production budget of US$20M and has generated largely positive critical reviews. 

Here animal-themed nail artist and casual cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) works an exclusive fund raising gala event with her best friend Jess (Alia Shawcat). Frida encounters billionaire tech mogul, Slater King (Channing Tatum), who is hosting the event and who recently stepped down as CEO amid a very public apology for his past behaviour toward his employees. After their shift has finished, the pair put on their glad rags and crash the after party, where ultimately Slater invites her and Jess to join him on his private island. And so Slater and his entourage fly off to the island on his private jet.

There, Slater's assistant Stacy (Geena Davis) confiscates their phones. In attendance are Slater's friends and business associates, photographer Vic (Christian Slater), private chef Cody (Simon Rex), DJ Tom (Haley Joel-Osment), and graduate Lucas (Levon Hawke), as well as three female guests - Sarah (Adria Arjona), Camilla (Liz Caribel), and Heather (Trew Mullen). The women are treated with lavish rooms, gift bags of perfume, and a high end holiday experience, enhanced by gourmet meals, cocktails and fine wines prepared by Cody, and potent hallucinogenic drugs supplied by Vic.

Frida clashes with Sarah for Slater's attention while Jess observes lapses in her memory. Frida notices that the local workers all sport the same snake tattoo on their arm, and she has strange encounters with an older maid who doesn't speak English, yet appears to recognise her and calls her 'Red Rabbit'. Later, Rich (Kyle MacLachlan), Slater's therapist, visits and receives a gift in a red bag. During a night of partying and drugs, Jess is bitten by a non-venomous snake and later confesses to Frida she wants to leave. 

At breakfast, Frida notices that Lucas smells like the perfume the women are given. While the men are away on a fishing trip, Frida discovers a room with dozens of identical red gift bags all lined up neatly around the room on rows of shelves. She is then tricked into drinking the snake's venom from a bottle by the maid and shortly thereafter begins to remember strange events. She realises that Jess is missing, although the rest of the women do not. Alarmed, Frida investigates and learns a flower indigenous to the island capable of wiping memories has been inside the food and perfume gifted to them. Frida convinces Sarah of what is happening and gets her to drink the venom too, an antidote to the flower's effects.

The men return from their fishing trip later that afternoon, as Frida and Sarah grow increasingly agitated and concerned for their ongoing safety. The pair trick the other women, including Stacy, into drinking tequila shots laced with the venom to restore their memories. Frida sneaks into Slater's office to retrieve their phones, only to find they are out of power and out of service range. Her full memories return, revealing the men have been sexually assaulting the women and then wiping their memories using the flower. When Jess's memories could not be wiped due to the venom in her system from the earlier snake bite, they killed her. She also discovers polaroids featuring different women and men with red gift bags, revealing that Slater is inviting guests to rape people regularly and gifting them perfume to use when they are away from the island.

Frida and Sarah try to buy themselves time with varying degrees of success as Camilla and Heather's memories return, leading Camilla to stab Tom to death while Heather badly injures Vic by repeatedly slamming a marble chess board into his head, before being shot dead by Stan (Cris Costa), Slater's former US Marine security guard. Slater kills Camilla and the men take refuge in Slater's villa where Slater chastises Lucas for opting to be inactively complicit in the abuse by doing nothing to help the women. Stacy attacks Frida, preferring to be ignorant of the men’s behaviour before Frida stabs her to death. Frida runs into the woods behind the villa and is chased by Stan who catches up with her and holds her at gunpoint, but is then bludgeoned to death from behind by Sarah with a rock, who takes his gun. Cody makes his way to the woods but is shot dead by Sarah. In the villa, Lucas tries to run away but due to a trap set for Slater by Frida and Sarah, is mistakenly shot in the head. Following this, Slater traps Frida in the villa and binds her hands and gags her mouth. 

It is revealed that Frida was invited to the island the year before and experienced the same events, biting off Vic's little finger and scarring her temple when she fell against a rock before her memories were wiped. The maid had recognised Frida from her fingernails painted with red rabbits. Slater laughs off his recent apology in the media and exclaims that forgetting is better than forgiveness, before leaving to retrieve Sarah. While Slater is gone, Frida cuts through her hand bindings with a shard of broken glass, and laces his vape with the memory-erasing perfume. When Slater returns with Sarah he holds a kitchen knife to her throat, but the effects make him forget the previous events, back away from Sarah and cause him to panic upon seeing the dead and mutilated bodies strewn across the floor. Slater slips and knocks himself unconscious as the villa catches fire. The two women escape, leaving Vic to die but Frida saves Slater. 

Sometime later at a similar gala dinner as to the one that opened the film, Rich, who also assaulted Frida on the island, encounters Slater who is noticeably incoherent. It is revealed that Frida has married Slater and assumed his position as CEO, all the while drugging his vape with the flower to keep him compliant. As the event's guests congratulate Frida, Rich is apprehended by law enforcement officers.

For Zoe Kravitz Directorial debut, she has hit on a winner here proving her filmmaking talents both in front and behind the camera, leaving this Reviewer keen to see what she turns her mind to next. Here she ably ramps up the tension, leverages the suspense, throws in the occasional laugh before serving up a blood soaked ending with nods to 'The Menu' and 'Get Out' especially. Channing Tatum is right on form here as the disgraced CEO tech tycoon, and Naomi Ackie and Adria Arjona add weight and credibility through their performances too. A well crafted film, with on point sound design, a cracking soundtrack and a stacked cast of A-list talent, this film is worth searching out for the underlying messages it seeks to impart, the visual spectacle and its power to keep you talking after the credits have rolled.

'Blink Twice' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-