Gonna try to be fair with this one. Some interesting concepts. Well, one interesting concept. Some okay story. But then a lot of other stuff. By Bong Joon Ho, South Korean director who did a good job with modern Kaiju The Host, Snowpiercer and the twisted Classfare Horror Parasite. He knows how to tell some weirder stories. This is a weirder story. Just maybe not really the best way to tell a weirder story.
AD 2054. Planet Niflheim. Colony ship 4 years from Earth finally touches down, in an effort to start a new branch of the human existence. Would’ve been a lot harder without Mickey signing up as an “expendable.” New tech, basically 3D print a human. Download his brain back in, so experience not lost. Not really legal back on Earth anymore, but rules are a bit looser out here in the spacefields. Good thing for them too, because Mickey really is a human guinea pig. Fuckit, we’ll just print a new one and go on, no harm no foul. But by Mickey 17, he’s starting to question his life choices. He’s not the brightest bulb in the socket.
I had to give some credit to Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse even with his questionable Bahstin accent. He does a decent job here playing around in the clone sandbox. He does do a pussy cuck convincingly, and v18 is a bit...different. It is a cool modern exploration on the concept of immortality and the ethical quandaries and complications that arise from it. And then there’s the quasi religious/political aspect that is just, well, cringe. I don’t know how much was script or how much it was Mark Ruffalo influencing the role, whatever it is, it’s unfortunate because it doesn’t match the tone of the rest of the film and because of this it breaks suspension of disbelief with its cartoonish villianry, making it a much lesser movie. Then Throw in a bit of tarded diversity, climate change and Toni Collette as the least likable human ever, well, it makes it a harder watch to make it to the end. At least there’s a few moments of extremely dark comedy thrown in to make it a little more tolerable.
