Film Talk: Double trouble for R-Pattz with cloning comedy Mickey 17

Yes, ‘tis true. While adoring throngs of Twilight fans always hoped and prayed for the day that there would be double the amount of the prettiest poster boy of all time to go around, they never really believed it would come.

Well the wait is over, guys and gals. Start the parade and sound the trombones – there’s no more need to mourn Cedric Diggory; he’s got a duplicate. And as for Bruce ‘Whine’, maybe a fun-loving doppelganger will be just the thing to cheer the caped crusader up a bit before Matt Reeves coaxes him out of the Batcave again.

Forget creating the first non-English-language film to win the Best Picture Oscar, Bong Joon Ho has now delivered his true and lasting legacy to the world of cinema: he’s cloned Robert Pattinson. May Taylor Lautner forgive him.

This week, the South Korean director’s long-awaited next project following the astronomically successful Parasite is finally here for all to see. 

Based on the 2022 novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, Mickey 17 puts our boy R-Pattz through the thrill of a sci-fi yarn that sees him enjoy the ride of his life. Again, and again, and again, and again.

With Pattinson and Pattinson front-and-centre in this cloning comedy adventure, you’d think there’d be little room for a supporting cast of particularly lethal cunning. However, backing up the boy who would be Batman (and the hurt in Kurt Cobain) are none other than Hollywood heavyweights Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette. Joining them for this banquet of the bizarre are BAFTA winning sensation Naomi Ackie (The End of the F***ing World) and Oscar nominee Steven Yeun (Minari).

But does this dystopian dance do justice to their moves? Is R-Pattz x2 more trouble than double? And has Bong Joon Ho managed to duplicate past glory? Do not adjust your sets, folks...

MICKEY 17 (UK 15/ROI 15A, 137 mins) ***

Released: March 7 (UK & Ireland)

Two Robert Pattinsons are marginally better than one in writer-director Bong Joon Ho’s madcap sci-fi fantasy adapted from the novel Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton.

Set in a deranged, dystopian future when human lab rats can be printed in around 20 hours and uploaded with a donor’s core memories, Mickey 17 poses discomfiting and timely questions about the widening gulf between society’s haves and have-nots.

This bleak mid-21st century fable unfolds under the aegis of a showboating fanatic played with scenery-chewing fervour by Mark Ruffalo, whose mannerisms and speech pattern strongly intimate a current resident of The White House.

It’s heavy-handed mimicry that feels like an unnecessarily cheap shot at the current US administration.

Pattinson’s performances as myriad incarnations of hapless hero Mickey are beautifully calibrated.

Digital trickery seamlessly unites these dumbfounded doppelgangers on screen, leading to some breathlessly staged and outlandish sequences including a snow-bound showdown with curiously cute woodlouse-like creatures dubbed “creepers”.

Flashes of moribund humour such as one badly injured Mickey being tossed into an incinerator when he is still (barely) alive enliven long stretches that reduce pacing to a pedestrian crawl.

The 137-minute running time is overly ambitious. In 2054, down-on-his-luck small-time criminal Mickey Barnes (Pattinson) signs up to be an ‘expendable’ – a worker who agrees to be reprinted every time he perishes – to avoid a fatal beating at the hands of a violent loan shark.

He flees Earth with friend and accomplice Timo (Steven Yeun) on an interstellar mission to the remote colony of Niflheim masterminded by Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo) and his sauce-obsessed wife Ylfa (Toni Collette).

Earlier incarnations of Mickey are guinea pigs in scientific experiments to observe the effects of exposure to radiation, deadly airborne pathogens and early incarnations of a vaccine that causes Mickey to cough up blood.

The only glimmer of light in each Mickey’s bleak (and brief) existence is a love affair with Niflheim security officer Nasha (Naomi Ackie).

The 17th iteration of Mickey is presumed dead after a close encounter with otherworldly creatures on the planet’s surface.

In fact, creepers save Mickey from a grim fate and when he arrives back at base, he comes face-to-face with his reprinted self.

The 18th Mickey is determined to enjoy his brief existence with Nasha and declares war on his predecessor as an ice storm gathers outside the colony’s base.

Mickey 17 lacks the consistent satirical bite and subtleties of Joon Ho’s previous film, the deliciously cruel Oscar-winning comedy Parasite, and harks back to his monster-mashing escapades in Okja and The Host.

Production design is wondrous and death becomes Pattinson but Ruffalo and Collette are poorly served by a script that juxtaposes moments of brilliance with patience-sapping longueurs.

In space, everyone will hear a sporadic stifled yawn.

ONE OF THEM DAYS (UK 15/ROI 15A, 97 mins) ***

Released: March 7 (UK & Ireland)

If life was always fair, mithering and moaning would be lost forever from the rich tapestry of British and Irish culture.

Those fleeting moments of misfortune and misery remind us to be present, show gratitude and demonstrate sympathy when someone else experiences “one of them days”.

Two Los Angeles roommates are repeatedly dealt losing hands in a raucous and foul-mouthed comedy directed by Lawrence Lamont, which follows the resourceful pair over an unpredictable day as they face eviction from a crumbling apartment complex.

Screenwriter Syreeta Singleton gift-wraps filthy-minded one-liners for lead duo Keke Palmer and SZA.

The film stages an amusingly overblown sequence inside the office of a payday lender, which offers cash with an eye-watering 1,900 per cent APR under the threatening advertising slogan, “We gotcha and we’ll getcha!”

Wackier diversions strain credibility. The characters’ impromptu visit to a blood bank casually ignores life-threatening consequences in search of a ghoulish giggle that never materialises. Palmer and SZA’s sparkling rapport energises these instances when tumbleweave skitters across the screen.

Dreux (Palmer) works long hours in Norm’s 24-hour diner, where she treats customers like family. She has an important interview at 4pm to be appointed franchise manager, which would mean more responsibility and money.

A few hours of precious sleep before the interview are interrupted by officious and unsympathetic landlord Uche (Rizi Timane) banging on the front door, angrily demanding the monthly rent of 1,500 US dollars which Dreux splits with aspiring artist roommate Alyssa (SZA). It transpires that Alyssa’s boyfriend Keshawn (Joshua Neal) has absconded with the cash and if the money owed is not forthcoming by 6pm, the two women will be forcibly removed from their home and deposited on the kerb with their worldly possessions.

With nine hours until the deadline, an infuriated Dreux and Alyssa hunt down Keshawn, who has a new woman (Aziza Scott) to pander to his needs.

Alas, he has invested the cash in a get-poor-quick scheme so the desperate roommates conceive ingenious ways to raise a four-figure sum before the sun sets, leading to run-ins with a neighbourhood thug (Amin Joseph), a vintage basketball footwear collector (Lil Rel Howery) and a hunky ex-con with the curious nickname of Maniac (Patrick Cage).

One Of Them Days harnesses the same freewheeling energy as the glorious 2017 comedy Girls Trip with a similar emphasis on the power of sisterly solidarity but markedly fewer laughs.

Palmer and SZA’s sparky double act is a source of wisecracking delight and heartwarming sentiment. Singleton’s script performs screeching U-turns to propel the lead duo towards a feelgood resolution with minimal dramatic outlay. It’s one of them films.

MARCHING POWDER (UK 18/ROI 18, 96 mins) ***

Released: March 7 (UK & Ireland)

Danny Dyer reunites with Nick Love, director of The Football Factory and The Business, for a bruising drama comedy about a passionate fan of the beautiful game who wants to turn his life around.

Middle-aged football hooligan Jack (Dyer) feels increasingly irrelevant in a society that prefers to trade blows over social media than in person.

Partial to drugs and the adrenaline rush of violent match day exploits, Jack is arrested after one altercation and given six weeks to reform or he will be sentenced to a long stretch behind bars.

He pledges to resist the gravitational pull of his fellow football fans and devote himself to his family but exceedingly bad habits are hard to break.

DAY OF THE FIGHT (UK 15/ROI 15A, 108 mins) ***

Released: March 7 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

Actor Jack Huston, grandson of Oscar-winning filmmaker John Huston, makes his directorial debut with an underdog story shot primarily in black and white.

Former middleweight champion Mikey Flannigan (Michael Pitt) leaves prison and nervously prepares for his first fight on the outside.

He is determined to emerge victorious in the ring to achieve redemption in the eyes of his ex-wife Jessica (Nicolette Robinson) and abusive father (Joe Pesci).

Supported by his trainer Stevie (Ron Perlman), Mikey readies himself for the fight of his life while he rebuilds burnt bridges to the people closest to him.