Mickey 17

Few people would like this position, but Mickey is exceptionally good at dying. On paper, the vacancy was incredibly tempting — an opportunity to surf the frontiers of space, not having any requirements and, most importantly, a chance to leave Earth and the bloodthirsty thugs of the same creditor. Except that the font about recurring painful deaths turned out to be too small.

The guy has already died a dozen times. They will either send it into space without the opportunity to return, then they will test an unknown virus, followed by a hasty vaccine against it. And one day, the colleagues decided that it was easier to leave the main character to die in a hole, because cloning him is much easier than finding a rope.

There's no reason for Mickey to be discouraged, though. First, creditors haven't cut off a single important part of his body so far. Secondly, if you stop thinking about the cost of your own life, you can even get used to death. Thirdly, if you pretend that conquering an alien planet is not a genocide of the local fauna, it will turn into a good deed.

At the same time, the powerful characters of Bong Joon Рo's new film “Mickey 17” also resemble “parasites”. They do not take into account the population of the snowy planet, nor the environmental consequences of the expedition, nor the opinion of the crew. They plan to exterminate local residents, women will have to give birth to new employees en masse, and Mickey, like a plastic bottle, is recycled over and over again.

Through the archetype of a thoughtless leader, the film grotesquely reveals authoritarian populism. Humanity's self-proclaimed savior marches in front of a crowd of poor fellows who demonstrate unity amid fear, a cult of personality, and ceremonial brutality. A spectacular farce turns the dictator into a walking poster where pathos and stupidity coexist with predatory pragmatism.

It doesn't matter how many fates are ruined, or how many times Mickey goes to the recycling oven, the end justifies the means. Death here is a line in the report, and wages are measured by the number of lives you can still give. As a result, Bong Joon Ho mocks the thirst for money and power, showing that greed and tyranny are the eternally hungry heads of the same hydra.

But Mickey doesn't think about such things. It is quite problematic to put one together when the fifth point froze into a snowdrift for another experiment, and the rations were cut again for past mistakes. A couple more failures and the last cockroach steak will also be taken away.

But having returned from another landing unharmed, Mickey faces a difficult dilemma. The new clone has already been printed because we didn't expect the guy to complete the task for some time, and now the ship has twice as many dumb people. It turns out that the ration should also be shared with him, otherwise both will be convicted of illegal copying and burned without further ado.

The new Mickey seems to look like the old one, though a little aggressive. Either he pounces on someone with his fists, then he decides to start a revolution — it's better to get rid of that as soon as possible. But a couple of days ago, the life of the original Mickey wasn't worth a penny, and now we need to determine which of the mediocrity is of great value to humanity.

And so Mickey — either a real person or a sixteen times recycled waste with a warranty card instead of a soul — decides that he's definitely not going to share his life for two. At first, the clones argue who has a fresh memory and the injuries hurt more, but as soon as one of them reaches out to another, the cynical biofactory fails. A dungeon built on fear collapses by itself.

Since a person can be printed like a discount coupon, humanity suddenly becomes a scarce commodity. Humanity does not apply to the body, but only increases as a side effect over the years. And when a couple of “consumables” suddenly decide that even recycled garbage is worth living, their friendship turns out to be louder than the peals of revolution and the creaking of cloning molds.