It's hard to make a smart science fiction movie—and even harder to make a smart sci-fi movie that is also a funny, audaciously bizarre, and pointedly political satire that is somehow still grounded in romance and real human feeling. I can think of one such movie—Brazil, the laugh-out-loud, incredibly bleak, epically romantic 1980s satire directed by Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam. If there's a runner-up, it's 12 Monkeys, also directed by Gilliam.
So on the one hand, I want to give director Bong Joon-ho credit for trying with Mickey 17—his smirking, strange, frantically wacky sci-fi romance political satire about an "expendable," a man whose job is to die repeatedly, and then be organically printed back into life in order to help a colony ship. The Oscar-winning director of Parasite, as well as cult sci-fi films Snowpiercer and The Host, has combined science fiction and politically engaged satire before, sometimes with excellent results. But the stilted, misbegotten Mickey 17 doesn't work as well as his prior efforts. Yes, it's ambitious, and it's hard to truly dislike this movie. But let's just say that Bong Joon-ho is no Terry Gilliam.
Unfortunately for a long-awaited follow-up to a groundbreaking Oscar winner, Mickey 17 is something of a disappointment. Part of the problem is that the movie's attempts at political satire come across as a little too of-the-moment—or, perhaps, of a recent moment now passed. The movie's release was delayed for about a year, which significantly dampens some of the intended topical humor.
