Mickey 17

I finished watching the movie No. 17 today. The overall conclusion is that the censorship made this Bong Joon-ho movie, which started out with a score of 8.5, become about 7.5, but smart audiences can still accept the essence of the whole movie.

Note! The censorship I'm talking about here is not the deletion of pornographic/bloody scenes in China, but the censorship of film investors; and I don't know who the censors are. Censorship is not uncommon for Hollywood movies. For example, the film producer Warner forced the Wachowski sisters to shoot The Matrix 4 (which turned out to be a meta movie).

I found that the tone of the first 2/3 of the movie is very different from the last 1/3. If you regard the narrative style as a human face, these two parts are two completely different faces. The first 2/3, except for a few laughs, is very Bong Joon-ho and very Snowpiercer (Welcome to read my Snowpiercer movie review: How do you evaluate the movie Snowpiercer?). Various plot foreshadowings pushed the audience's expectations to a peak, but the last 1/3 fell down. The metaphors and plots foreshadowed were not recycled, and it led to a childish ending.

Based on my experience of watching the film, this is almost certainly the result of an internal struggle. But if we assume that there is a game between Bong Joon-ho and the investors, and bring this game into the film as a meta-narrative, the film will be more interesting.

The film is scheduled to be released in North America on March 29, 2024.\[17\] On January 10, 2024, Warner Bros. announced that the film would be withdrawn due to delays in post-production. The new release date will be announced at a later date.

All the following comments contain spoilers. If you don't want to be spoiled, you can come back after you finish watching the movie.

Next up is the official movie review.

Bong Joon-ho is a high-concept director who is best at making political metaphors. "Number 17" is undoubtedly a political metaphor movie.

The quality of metaphors in "Number 17" is also very good, maintaining the tone of Bong Joon-ho's "Snowpiercer", and using one or two special details to outline the entire worldview. Let me give you an example. When the male protagonist signed a contract to become a "consumable" for the interstellar travel team to collect debts, the signing hall was full of poor people. The poor people lined up one after another, like zombies (like Yomi Hirasaka in Seiya), walking up a spiral staircase shot from above, and waited to go to the top floor to sign. Suddenly, the wind and sand picked up outside, and then the hall played an advertisement for anti-dust masks.

From this ten-second scene, we can see the era setting of the movie:

Technology is highly developed, and interstellar travel is already possible

The Earth's climate is on the verge of destruction, and humans have become accustomed to sandstorms.

The social economy collapsed, so the underworld and loan sharks became rampant again.

This collapsed society is completely controlled by capitalism. Even job applicants can only buy anti-dust masks at a 95% discount.

This kind of information-dense shot appears repeatedly in the movie, and the high-concept world view setting of the whole movie is more interesting than the story itself. This is the Bong Joon-ho I am familiar with, and this movie is undoubtedly his masterpiece.

But! But it is obvious that this "film written and directed by Bong Joon-ho" has a very obvious political mission, which is to be anti-MAGA and prepare for the US election. For example:

The film's sci-fi background is interstellar colonization, reflecting Musk

Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo undoubtedly mirrors Trump in his performance.

MAGA symbols appear everywhere in the movie, such as red hats, and are repeatedly mocked.

The second half of the film inserts various "deliberate" political correctness, such as deliberately emphasizing LGBT, women's power, etc.

I don't need to spoil more of the other points. It was definitely unexpected that this movie was released after Trump's victory. It was obviously a bullet in the campaign, including the irony of the villain Marshall "So you lost the election twice"!!

But the reality is that Trump, who was ridiculed, won the election. This bullet flew for too long and became a joke.

Even the scene in the movie where Marshall, who alludes to Trump, is assassinated and has a bullet grazing his face, I reasonably speculate that it was re-shot after July last year. From the beginning (No. 17 returns home) to the whole scene of shooting Marshall, the scenes switch back and forth, and the narrative focus (the clones also have to compete for me in social relations) has also obviously changed. The transition is paved with watered-down jokes (two women discussing the division of two men), and the plot advancement is extremely illogical.

If the only goal of this movie is to be an anti-MAGA metaphor, and it fails miserably and slaps itself in the face - then Bong Joon-ho becomes a thug of capital, and a failed thug at that. Too low!

But I clearly saw a political metaphor in the first 2/3 that was far more complete than anti-MAGA - it was still Bong Joon-ho's consistent theme, anti-capitalism, and opposition to capitalism's alienation of human beings, especially workers.

The normal narrative logic of the movie should be completely centered around the sci-fi concept of "Expandable" (consumable humans), just like the titles of "Snowpiercer" or "Parasite". The plot logic I originally saw should be:

As a "consumable", the protagonist is completely alienated, and as a human being he is not treated as a human being.

The audience began to wonder what kind of people would choose to become "consumables"

Economic poverty and bankruptcy (similar to "Parasite") is the protagonist's superficial motivation for being consumables

The subconscious motivation for the protagonist to be consumable is that he believed that he had killed his relatives when he was a child.

Believing that one has original sin, and therefore accepting that one is being exploited, is one of the most common entry points for Bong Joon-ho's anti-capitalism.

Mickey 17 survives by chance and forms Multiple (together with 18), which is the turning point of the drama. Exactly the same as the excellent work "Moon".

Multiple causes the two Mickeys to start competing for social relationships (such as the same lover), and the war of "all against all" escalates to "all me against all me" (Marxist metaphor)

In the process of fighting against his other self, Mickey 17's subjective consciousness awakened and he began to "not want to die"

It turns out that the two "I"s, No. 17 and No. 18, are not mortal enemies. The capitalist logic that created them (completely alienating humans into labor) is the culprit.

Mickey realized that his original sin should only punish himself, and the logic of capitalism that made him suffer was actually making everyone suffer. So he could no longer accept being exploited.

………………Bong Joon-ho's classic masterpiece………………

Mickey breaks free from the capitalist chains that bind him, and at the same time finds spiritual liberation from his original sin. The story comes to an end.

………………Bong Joon-ho's classic extremely cold and dark ending………………

In other words, "anti-MAGA" was probably the topic of the investor's essay, and Bong Joon-ho just happened to use it as a sci-fi background. His story was not prepared to be anti-MAGA at all.

But it is very obvious that the quality of this movie's plot has declined rapidly since episode 8. All the foreshadowing has been disconnected, and the emotions are not connected. Episodes 9 to 13 have completely become anti-MAGA + white left plots, which can be said to be very childish, not to mention being slapped in the face by reality!

In other words, in "Number 17", it was Bong Joon-ho's turn to dance on swords and experience the story of the Wachowski sisters when filming "The Matrix 4".

But The Matrix 4 is still a masterpiece for me, the best "meta-narrative" I have ever seen. The directors fully integrated the oppression of the investors and their own incompetence and powerlessness into the plot and intertextualized with reality. The directors kept blowing the dog whistle and blinking their eyes, wanting the audience who could understand the dog whistle to know that although their bodies were kidnapped, their spirits would not be kidnapped.

So, is there any dog whistle from Bong Joon-ho in "Number 17"?

Haha, that's right. This is actually the biggest highlight of the movie after it collapses in the second half.

The movie seems to be anti-MAGA, but in fact it is anti-Zionism. It reveals a little bit of information in the repeated twists and turns. It is so vivid!

First of all, the original sci-fi setting of "Number 17" is a fusion of the Great Flood (the earth is on the verge of destruction), the Exodus (the interstellar ark), and finally God's people came to the "promised land" and lived a fairy tale life of "happily ever after". It's just that this process should not be led by MAGA. The ending of the final version of the movie is also the same.

However, this interstellar journey that Bong Joon-ho put together with metaphors is full of anti-utopia, for example:

Snowpiercer-style cockroach energy cubes

When faced with danger, the employees crawled into the sleeping cabins in the cracks of the wall like cockroaches in "Parasite"

Following this tonality, the ending will either be like:

Snowpiercer-style ending, bombing the state that causes the historical cycle, when the day comes, I will die with you

The ending of "Parasite" is like that of the male protagonist who kills people because of his rebellion against the success theory. His son is instead shackled by the spiritual shackles of the success theory in order to save his father.

How could it be happily ever after? The nightmare that was glimpsed at the end of the movie did not assume a "second hidden ending" (a low-level conspiracy theory), but was more like the airport battle at the end of Tsui Hark's "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy".

This is just a low-level dog whistle. The movie's truly high-level dog whistles are:

Everywhere it is hinted that Marshall, the MAGA-style populist leader, is being manipulated.

The team operating him is the "church", but as a businessman, Marshall believes that he works for the "company".

The church's logo only appears for 0.5 seconds, and it seems to be a variation of the Masonic logo.

The bald photographer who had been sucking up to Marshall was the "pastor" who mentally controlled Marshall.

This mysterious "church" (similar to SEELE in "EVA") is dedicated to finding the "promised land".

After arriving on the planet, the bald "pastor" repeatedly encouraged Marshall to start a massacre first and then go to his death.

None of these foreshadowings were recovered at the end of the movie. They all became waste. But we can see Bong Joon-ho's original design:

The MAGA leaders are just puppets of a certain Zionist secret religion. This group of people has been plotting behind the scenes, using capital to manipulate political leaders to practice their own beliefs; they use the manipulated populist leaders to help them carry out massacres, clear out the foreigners in the "Promised Land", and then replace these MAGAs as the masters of the "Promised Land".

This dark plot should have burst out together with the bright plot of the male protagonist breaking the mental shackles at the end of the plot, complementing each other. But both plots disappeared!

OK, let's stop here for the analysis of the movie. After all, I only watched the preview once, so I missed a lot. This split movie is neither a bad movie nor a good one. But if you also understand the reasons for the split plot, the secret game between the director and certain forces, doesn't it become interesting?

To be honest, if I hadn't checked the theater schedule in advance, I would have felt that this movie was released quietly. When I told people around me that I was going to watch "No. 17", they all responded with an expression of surprise. I was exhausted from taking the subway and bus. It was a good thing that I had booked the theater for the first time in many years, but it was a pity that I didn't enjoy it. Just looking at the poster, the somewhat dull-looking young Niu Wufang actually had a new movie to be released. When I looked at the director column, it turned out to be Bong Joon-ho. This discovery was much more surprising than the movie brought me.

After watching it, I was embarrassed. I felt stuck in an awkward position. If I say it's not good, it's not a bad movie. If I say it's good, it's really boring. If I say it's a commercial film to please the public, the control of the rhythm is really hard to describe. There is no excitement. Even if the tender beef and five sides tried their best to perform, it was like scratching an itch through a shoe and couldn't stir up the slightest ripple in my heart. If I say it's an art film with philosophical ideas that are difficult to understand, it feels a bit superficial, superficial, and too childish.

It reminded me of the feeling of watching "Tenet" back then. To put it bluntly, the human ability to make up stories has reached its limit. Even Bong Joon-ho cannot change this ironclad fact. It is the same thing over and over again. No longer expect to shock the world. Whether it is the human body printing technology in the film or the familiar scary insects, there are traces in film history. But the point that reflects the ability of an excellent director is that even if he is just copying others and accidentally overturns the car, he can still draw his own unique style.

Jokes and satire are still Bong Joon-ho's forte. You can hear a hint of black humor in the monologue of Tender Beef Wu Fang. The ridiculous farce-like clips in the film are nothing more than a reflection of the absurd reality. Bong Joon-ho seems to be telling the audience that reality is far more outrageous than movies. It seems exaggerated, but it is just emphasized. I always feel that once Bong Joon-ho leaves the context of Korea, he will easily fall into a framework influenced by mainstream values. He wants to make it unique and awesome, but he doesn't want to deviate from the public. The final effect is a bit weird.

When I finished watching "Parasite" that year, I mentioned that the design was too strong. The intention to show the gap between the upper and lower classes and the direction of the contradiction ("getting worse"), separated from the local cultural connection and atmosphere, will become more and more obvious, lacking a certain logical basis, and neither convincing nor infectious. This time, it felt like I wanted to have more fun easily, but ended up falling flat on my face. There was nothing impressive after watching it, but I couldn't help but think of the deleted clips (where they were, everyone knows it well). By the way, Zheng Zai Ri's soundtrack is pretty good.

However, this film is not without merits. It is not very good, but it is not a bad film either. First of all, Mark Ruffalo's performance is very good, and I wish he and Nen Niu Wufang could switch roles. Anyone with a discerning eye can see who is being parodied and satirized. It successfully interprets what a "fool" with an expressive personality is. It is a bit refreshing to see the death of the pigtail. The world is a large-scale makeshift troupe, with one person singing and another taking the stage, and the truth is sometimes false and sometimes false. The self-righteous stupidity of human beings is also vividly portrayed.

In fact, the character positioning of 17 and 18 is quite interesting, two extremes. I have read an article before that said that in the future, human bodies will be frozen, and memories will be stored. When technology matures, they will be reintroduced like in the film, but there is no guarantee that there will be no unknown changes in cognition and personality. This will involve the part of ethics and philosophy. The retention and change of "I" form a subtle and ambiguous combination and contradiction, which is me and not me. It's a pity that the main theme of the film was that the two fought side by side. The crisis and hidden dangers were just like a dream, fleeting and stopped at the right time. Bong Joon-ho did not explore it in depth.

I really like the scary bugs in the movie (a tribute to Hayao Miyazaki?), especially the part where they try to send 17 back to the ground. They look so cute. The seemingly scary and ferocious lower animals actually have more wisdom and kindness than the self-righteous humans. While watching this movie, I felt that humans are really creatures who love to mess around, and they have to blame themselves. I waited until the end of the film, silently looking forward to an easter egg, imagining Mark Ruffalo coming out of the printer, holding the scary bug and giving a passionate and funny speech like Trump, and then shooting the baby bug to death, and the scary bugs killed humans, and the world was peaceful from then on.

I walked into the cinema and sat down in the two best seats. The girl smiled and said: We have reserved the theater again! I said no, I saw a girl sitting in the last row. She said: Let's talk quietly.

The little girl returned from spring break. Besides eating, drinking and sleeping, she naturally arranged some entertainment activities. She attended a solo concert by a European pianist. The volunteer mother was checking tickets at the door. Her violin teacher was accompanying her on the stage. She ran up to say hi. She watched a movie called "Nezha 2" with English subtitles and liked it very much. "Nezha 2" had a good box office in North America. "Fengshen 2" was only shown for two days in our small town, while "Nezha 2" was shown for a month. I said that I had planned to take her to see Mickey 17, and she said: Let's go and see it.

She likes K-pop and Korean food, and had a great time in Korea. She was curious about how Bong Joon-ho's new film was going. So she watched two movies in the cinema in two consecutive days, which was her first time in 18 years.

When we were chatting the night before, she suddenly asked me: If a movie doesn't do well at the box office, can it still be a good movie? I said, of course, Citizen Kane has been ranked first or second on various film history lists for many years, but it failed at the box office. Mulholland Drive also didn't do well at the box office, and Blade Runner, which we watched together some time ago, didn't do well at the box office when it was released, and its reputation was not good either, but later the reviews got higher and higher, and it turned around by relying on video tapes and became a sci-fi masterpiece.

At this point, I realized she was talking about "Number 17", and added: Watching a movie is like reading a book or listening to a song. It doesn't matter what others say about it, as long as you like it. Of course, if the box office fails, it will affect the director's future films. Many famous directors have had this experience, such as a famous Hong Kong director (King Hu) and a famous Hollywood director from Europe (Billy Wilder). Both of them had no films to shoot due to box office failures. When they met in Los Angeles, they felt a sense of sympathy.

When the male villain appeared, I whispered: Hulk! She ignored me. After watching it, I said that the perfume-haired girl at the beginning had starred in "The Catch", and she said no wonder she looked so familiar, she felt like she had seen her before. I said: Her name seems to be Hollinger, and she also starred in a TV series adapted from Rowling's detective novels. She checked it on her phone and said: Her name is Holliday Grainger, you mixed up her first name and last name!

I then asked about Robert Pattinson, and she said he acted very well. I said: Do you know? In China, he has a nickname, "Nen Niu Wu Fang". She asked why, so I started with the development of KFC in China...

In the past, fans of Peking opera would chat about the actors, but now people often go to the movies to see the stars. I said that this movie has many actors, and she said: I can see that, this is a big check from Hollywood to Bong Joon-ho.

She went on to explain that if a "dark horse" director wins an Oscar, Hollywood will often invite him to make a blockbuster. I said: Yes, there was a Chinese director who won the Golden Bear Award and was nominated for an Oscar, and Hollywood invited him to make a crime thriller (Killing Me Softly, Chen Kaige's only English film). Zhao Ting won an Oscar, and Marvel invited her to make "Eternals", but the box office was a failure, and she has not released any new films so far. In fact, I think she shouldn't have taken "Eternals" at the time, because it is too far away from her style. Bong Joon-ho has made "Snowpiercer" and "The Host", and Mickey 17 can be said to be a continuation of his work. By the way, do you think this movie emphasizes diversity?

She said that although there are Americans, Europeans, African Americans and Asian Americans in the film, she didn't feel that it was deliberately emphasized, but the white female character who ate a big meal together was a bit unnecessary. I said: Letting her give birth to a perfect child should be a criticism of eugenics and white supremacy. I think the whole film is too soft and lacks power, and the metaphors and satires are too straightforward...

She interrupted me and said: I like it! For people like Trump and Musk, satire should be straightforward!

I said: Just like I said yesterday, the most important thing about watching a movie is that you like it. It doesn't matter what others say, and it doesn't matter what your dad says!

The child grows up day by day, and slowly becomes a friend who watches movies and talks about movies with you. It's still very happy, but at the same time, he is getting farther and farther away from you, and the time to go home is getting less and less. On the way back from the movie, she said that she had applied for a summer research program some time ago, and there were few places and fierce competition. She was a little worried that she would not get it. I wished her good luck, and she smiled and said: You really mean it? This is a ten-week program. If I get it, you won't see me for the whole summer.

Mickey 17(B+) Alien bugs are so cute! At first, I felt disgusted and even a little nauseous. When there were a lot of them, they were still scary. Later, the more I watched, the cuter they were. I really wanted to pet them. This alien bug is called Creeper. It has a lot of scenes in the film, far more than I expected. It's worthy of Bong Joon-ho. He likes monsters very much and always keeps his mischievousness and childlike innocence.

The whole movie is actually very cruel, and many scenes are uncomfortable, fully showing the worst face of human nature. Many people in the film seem to have completely lost their emotions, cold, selfish and cruel. Whether it is the alien worms or the "clones" played by Robert Pattinson, they are treated cruelly in various ways, which makes people sad. However, some people still retain the kind and warm part of human nature. As the object of bullying and cute pets of human invasion, the alien worms will become the most touching characters in the film and steal the show.

Robert Pattinson has many interesting and exaggerated performances in the film, showing his acting skills and sense of humor. The character he plays is actually not very smart and looks silly, but it also shows the tragic color of the character. I think Wu Fang is a person without a fixed pattern and temperament. He can really play any role and is very malleable.

Mark Ruffalo's character is obviously a satire of Trump, and the portrayal is a bit exaggerated. Not only the fact that the supporters wear red hats, but there are many things that match Trump, which is obvious. I feel that in the next four years, villains based on him will appear in movies all over the world. It is so inspiring for screenwriters.

Bong Joon-ho's favorite horror elements are still present in this film, with many unexpected thrillers, but they are still presented in a satirical and comedic way. Some people may like this cruel humor, but others may not be used to it, so this film may not be very mainstream. But I really like the visual effects of this film, whether it is the alien planet, alien bugs, or the two Mickeys, there are no flaws, they are very natural and realistic.