Anyone else found Mickey 17 embarrassingly bad? (Just watched it)

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨maegul@lemmy.ml⁩ to ⁨movies@lemm.ee⁩

I wanted to like it for basically everything going for it - premise, Pattinson, Bong, sci-fi, “original” film - but came out pretty much as bitter as I have ever after a film. I’m not one to do it, but I was close to walking out on it.

There are some touches of what the film could have been, some moments maybe. But on the whole it felt like a train wreck where I’d bet that people knew on set that it just wasn’t going to work.

At some point I noticed there was a good amount of yelling from the actors (I’m wondering if that’s just me) and can’t help but suspect it was the director or actors trying to find energy in scenes that were struggling. Or maybe that happened in the edit. Then there’s Ruffulo and Collette’s satirical characters that just didn’t land and felt dumb and amateur (along with Poor Things, I’m thinking Ruffulo is just not good and “original” film makers would do well to stay away)

All up, I think it’s embarrassingly bad, or “objectively” bad. No real depth, no coherence or pacing or well directed momentum, much of the comedy doesn’t land, characters and plot often feel like afterthoughts, and it got boring too.

I think this movie review (from a pleasantly non-hype yt channel) says it better than I can.

What’s funny is I think a lot of people want this to be good. For the sake of original, fun, quirky, satirical films (and honestly, me too). But are stuck confronting a film that’s only making that situation worse not better and which represents the risks that studios need to accept not the successes they don’t understand).

Am I off here? I was pleased to find the review I linked as it seemed to match my thoughts.

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Comments

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mienshao@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Mickey 17 was a fun sci-fi movie. Best I’ve seen? Hell no. But it was a good time. Solid flick… This is an insanely critical take. You don’t even give any good reasons other than it was bad cause I said so. Hardly “objective.” Like god damn, people are fuckin impossible to please.

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- maegul@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Objective was quoted to signal that it’s a loaded term.
  
  I mentioned a number of other things besides not liking it and linked to a review that mirrored my thoughts well.
  
  I like plenty of films (Bong’s included).
  
  As for a summary of “reasons”, I’d say it was thin on meaning and loud and discombobulated in its direction, dialogue, pacing and plotting beyond my threshold of enjoyment or even tolerance.
  
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ApollosArrow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Echoing others that this isn’t a horrible movie. I enjoyed the ride. If you want to watch a better version of this movie, maybe try Moon.

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- maegul@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Interesting comparison. I think Mickey 17 is trying to be something different from Moon, with some overlapping themes. I’d say it’s more Starship Troopers and fifth element with moon-like themes.
  
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  - ApollosArrow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    They are definitely different movies. I find Starship Trooper and Fifth Element’s humor to be a bit more of their time. The best thing I can compare it to quality wise would be like some of the Netflix movies that have come out in the last few years.
    
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- rezz@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I struggled with Moon and actually thought it didn’t live up to the word-of-mouth hype at all. 6/10 for me.
  
  I think it was probably more momentous at the Sundance debut.
  
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  - Ilandar@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Yes I think it’s a much more impactful film if you watch it totally blind. It’s a shame you didn’t get to experience that.
    
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xyzzy@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
No. “Objectively bad,” lol. At least make an attempt to distinguish your opinion from objective reality about a subjective medium.

I think it was pretty OK, not bad, a few odd pacing choices. The biggest flaw was how undeveloped Kai was. She was set up in act 1, had a lot of screen time in act 2, then completely disappeared from existence for the entire last act except for one brief “oh yeah, here’s Kai” shot at the end.

Some of the on-screen violence against the baby bugs was repugnant, but it was supposed to be, so I’ll forgive it.

Otherwise I thought Pattinson did a great job realizing his characters and the overall plot worked pretty well as a movie, without being too simple or too complex.

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- Ilandar@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  The biggest flaw was how underdeveloped Kai was. She was set up in act 1, had a lot of screen time in act 2, then completely disappeared from existence for the entire last act except for one brief “oh yeah, here’s Kai” shot at the end.
  
  I totally forgot about this! I completely agree, it was so bizarre how much screen time and development her character received in the middle of the film for it to ultimately lead nowhere. I thought for sure she was going to be setup as either a new love interest (with a twist where his previous lover turns on him) or setup as a new villain but they did neither. She didn’t even influence the plot in a sidekick role, she was just totally absent following the riot scene. I wonder if something was cut because it seemed like big inconsistency.
  
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  - xyzzy@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Yeah, I had the same thoughts about where her character was going, and that either her character arc was cut for time or got lost in a rewrite.
    
    But the really weird thing was how Bong portrayed her as a little unhinged when she was shooting the baby bug: no restraint and no expression. They made sure to show her face at the end of that scene after the baby had been turned into hamburger, and it seemed a little intentionally unsettling based on the context.
    
    When they depicted Nasha as a little unhinged as well, I was wondering if they were saying something about future soldiers. No, I guess, based on the ending. Nasha just gets homicidal about Mickey, and who knows what’s up with Kai because her character failed the Bechdel Test and then disappeared.
    
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Ilandar@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I agree with the others, I think this is a unusually negative take. However, the fact that you haven’t really explained your criticisms in any sort of detail makes it very difficult to determine whether you actually have a point or if you are the stereotypical 1 star rage reviewer on IMDB. I thought the film had its flaws, so I would be willing to hear more detailed reasoning from you.

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- maegul@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  I don’t think I’m a raging IMDb reviewer.
  
  As I said in another comment:
  
  As for a summary of “reasons”, I’d say it was thin on meaning and loud and discombobulated in its direction, dialogue, pacing and plotting beyond my threshold of enjoyment or even tolerance.
  
  Beyond that, the review I linked captures my thoughts well.
  
  In short I think it crossed a threshold for me that’s likely different for many (thus the mix of up and down votes here).
  
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  - Ilandar@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    The only thing there I’d really agree with is the pacing, which is only an issue in the final third of the film. Your other complaints are sort of just about Bong Joon-ho’s style, most of his films are like that. I’m surprised you found them problematic considering he was one of the reasons why you went to see the film.
    
    And to be honest I’m not really interested in watching someone else’s review of the film. If you want to discuss it then you should put the effort into articulating your thoughts here.
    
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kratoz29@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I watched it and I liked it.

End of my review.

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rezz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
It was a 6.5 that should have been an 8.

It’s a tragedy how expensive it was though. They’ll never give him this budget again.

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- maegul@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  
  It’s a tragedy how expensive it was though. They’ll never give him this budget again.
  
  Yea this is partly why I posted, the “meta” story around the film is interesting (and sad) I think.
  
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jbone@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
It was definitely flawed and could have been better, but I thought it was still pretty solid and enjoyable.

I thought the black comedy elements were fine.

I approached it as more of a “fairy tale for adults with satire” than a straight up scifi movie.

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Yeldarb12@toast.ooo ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I don’t think it was as bad as you think. Overall it was okay. It felt like things happened the way they did because they had an ending they wanted to reach. I haven’t read the book but I probably will since books are almost always better.

My biggest problem is when 17 fell into the hole and was left for dead due to how injured he was. A bit later (maybe an hour max?) after he got pushed out of the hole, he was sprinting and flailing his arms at the truck that brought him back to base.

The acting and special effects were pretty good in my opinion. The directing was bad. The editing could have been much better. I understand that movies strive to be as close to the book as possible but some things just don’t work in both and should be removed.

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tyrant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I haven’t seen the movie yet but enjoyed the books. They were fun and adventurous with some twists of having doppelgangers running around.

After just watching the electric state and being supremely disappointed at the direction they took, I’m not thrilled to be disappointed again with another movie messing up a good idea.

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- maegul@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Yea that’s an interesting perspective (and obviously I’d recommend staying away from the film, I think it’d only frustrate you).
  
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steeznson@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It’s a messy movie. I think a lot of the more current jokes/references are going to age badly like when Futurama came back and made iphone jokes to be topical.

That said, I really enjoyed 60% of it so gave it 3 stars on letterboxed. At least it tried something new in its genre mashups. My personal theory is that big Bong struggles to direct English language films like this and Snowpiercer because he misses a sense of how the script sounds to a native speaker.

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- maegul@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Yep agreed. On the English language thing, I suspected but don’t know enough about him and haven’t seen enough of his films to be confident enough to claim it. But it certainly seemed to me that the writing-directing-editing just was not landing at all. I think my problem is that I picked up on it fairly early on in the film and couldn’t stop it from distracting me from the films positives.
  
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Artyom@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I only have one question for you; who did you vote for?

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- maegul@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I’m not sure I understand you.
  
  If this is a US politics thing … I’m not USian.
  
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- clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  What in OP’s post makes you wonder that?
  
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  - Artyom@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    The thing that really got me thinking on it was that he never even mentioned that Mark Ruffalo is a very literal allegory for Trump. I find the most common way of criticizing anti-Trump art is to avoid acknowledging its relation to him, even if any other criticism you can give is fairly superficial. The Boys and Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show come to mind as recent examples.
    
    The movie was first and foremost a criticism of Trumpism and late-stage capitalism, the sci-fi setting was merely incidental. If you leave all that stuff out, yeah, of course it was a bland sci-fi movie, it was also about 10 minutes long!
    
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suicidaleggroll@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I hoped it would be better, but all in all I thought it was enjoyable

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- DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Yeah. I very much don’t agree with some changes they made, particularly in making Mickey 17 an outright idiot and having such strong personality differences between Mickeys, but it was okay.
  
  The problem was it could have easily been great.
  
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01011@monero.town ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
It’s a silly sci-fi flick that scratched an itch for me on the day that I watched it. I did not read about the movie before I watched it and thus had zero expectations.

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