Comment on 'Mickey 17' Sinks at Box Office to $18.5 Million Opening Weekend

• gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  No, that’s a poor or reductive reading of what I wrote at best.

  Spoilers

  • I don’t like that the ship is shown to have tons of fanatical applicants and be a religious/corporate vessel under the donation and control of a crazed politician and yet the rebellion comes out of no where and is successful.
  • I don’t like that Mickey has a personality matrix and yet he explicitly gets cloned with two very different matrixes when they go multiple. I thought this was a hint that Mickey 18 didn’t have a soul but the serial killer they showed us seemed to have identical personalities across all three of them.
  • I didn’t like that the love interest bad ass cop whose main traits are badass, loyal, horny, druggie, and on a fanatical religious ship gives a speech at the end about colonialism. It didn’t feel foreshadowed, it didn’t feel in character, it wasn’t stylized or clever to justify the over-the-topness like the politician or his wife. It felt like a stand in for the director or audience. In fact the whole last act felt like cheap therapeutic “bad guys losing” porn you were supposed to live vicariously through because everything up to that point justified why they would lose.
  • I didn’t like that the head of the rebellion’s only other scene was when he caught the piece of shit friend dealing drugs and seemed shady. Again, the rebellion came out of no where for me.
  • I didn’t like that there was little corporate political commentary by the end of it all. It was mostly a silly over the top scenario but it didn’t feel like it said anything. Comparing this to Moon, as an example, feels horrible.
  • I didn’t like some of the retroactive explanations like the vaccine was actually now a nerve toxin. I didn’t like the translator coming out of no where for no reason.
  • I didn’t like that they kept any bi-sexual/lesbian hints entirely encapsulated and removable presumably for the Asian market. Like either commit or don’t you cowards.

  Generally, again, the story felt like its premise won me over in the first half. Out of sheer excitement for what could happen I enjoyed the first bit. The stellar acting from the main character and the political couple and the shitty friend was really nice. I also enjoy sci-fi films in general. But by the end none of the possibilities came to fruition and none of the threads felt connected or meaningful. Even in memory the sci-fi aesthetic is fading for me next to movies like Romulus or shows like Secret Level that had more enjoyable eye candy in set design and technology.

  5 or 6 / 10

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  • noxypaws@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Thanks for the super detailed response! I personally really enjoyed and felt like I really needed to see the rebellion and victory, the catharsis of seeing Marshall get absolutely wrecked with a punch to the face was glorious to me. And it genuinely felt like both he as a character and all the unpleasant shit the film laid out along the way earned that. I don’t think it’s too far to believe that such extreme conditions and such an extremely fucking stupid leader with four years trapped together would lead to enough resentment to cause the rebellion.

    I do definitely agree, most strongly with the final point - there was the slightest hint of some queer love but they ripped it away after half a second of merely implying it.

    Also quite strongly agree with #2 - and I felt like Mickey shouldn’t ever remember his own death if he only backs up his personality once a week, unless there’s some untold story (or I just missed some exposition) where they advanced the tech to be realtime backup.

    I must have missed the part about the vaccine being a nerve toxin. Translator seemed entirely believable to me - if they can print humans and re-implant memory backups, a translator seems comparatively technologically simple

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