Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 7, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ● C3 FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2025 Robert Pattinson not only gets reborn, many times, but rescues film from Bong Joon Ho’s zealousness DEATH and overkill S O you think YOUR job is bad? Sorry if we seem to be lacking empathy here. But however crum- my you think your 9-5 routine is, it’ll never be as bad as Robert Pattinson’s in Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 — nor will any job, on Earth or any planet, approach this level of misery. Mickey, you see, is an “Expend- able,” and by this we don’t mean he’s a cast member in yet another sequel to Sylvester Stallone’s tired band of mercenaries (Expend17ables?). No, even worse! He’s literally expendable, in that his job description requires that he die, over and over, in the worst possible ways, only to be “reprinted” once again as the next Mickey. And from here stems the good news, besides the excellent Pattinson, whom we hope got hazard pay, about Bong’s hotly anticipated followup to Parasite. There’s creativity to spare, and much of it surrounds the ways he finds for his lead character to expire — again and again. The bad news, besides, well, all the death, is that much of this film de- volves into narrative chaos, bloat and excess. In so many ways, the always in- ventive Bong just doesn’t know where to stop. It hardly seems a surprise that the sci-fi novel, by Edward Ashton, he’s adapting here is called Mickey7 — Bong decided to add 10 more Mickeys. The first act, though, is crackling. We begin with Mickey lying alone at the bottom of a crevasse, having barely survived a fall. It is the year 2058, and he’s part of a colonizing ex- pedition from Earth to a far-off planet. He’s surely about to die. In fact, the outcome is so expected that his friend Timo (Steven Yeun), staring down the crevasse, asks casually: “Haven’t you died yet?” How did Mickey get here? We flash back to Earth, where Mickey and Timo ran afoul of a villainous loan shark. This man likes to dine while watching his goons torture delinquent borrow- ers. Needless to say, the two young men need to escape — and far. So they join the expedition to planet Nilfheim. Filling out his job applica- tion, Mickey, a hapless chap with an American grifter accent apparently subconsciously inspired by Steve Buscemi in Fargo, fails to read the fine print. He’s distracted by the smell of a woman’s hair. It’s rather a shock, then, when he learns what he signed up for. During the four-plus year journey, he’ll be a human guinea pig, subjected to count- less fatal indignities. Sending him out to absorb cosmic radiation, they ask Mickey to track the moment his skin burns and the moment he becomes blind. When his hand falls off and floats by the ship’s windows, nobody takes notice. That’s because a human “printer” awaits — looking a lot like an MRI machine — ready to reprint him, with memory backup. Human printing has been banned on Earth, but is legal in space, where there is also, unfortu- nately, no worker’s comp. Things are bleak on the ship. Food is rationed severely. Sex takes up too many calories, so it is banned, by none other than Kenneth Marshall, the wealthy, pompous, thin-skinned leader of the expedition (Mark Ruffalo) and his unpleasantly perky wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette). This is inconvenient for Mickey, whose shipboard life is made bearable only by Nasha (Naomi Ackie), his brave and loving girlfriend, but they seem to get it on nonetheless, be- tween Mickey’s deaths and new lives. Marshall’s supporters wear red baseball caps, which gives you a pretty good hint as to which real-life leader Ruffalo, and Bong, are trying to evoke here. Current political references aside, Ruffalo relies mainly on an eccentric facial tic, and it must be said that both he and Collette grow more buffoonish, and hence more tiresome, as time goes on. But Pattinson’s Mickey is the life (um, lives) we care about. By the time he falls into a crevasse and meets up with some presumably terrifying but also cute native animals — creepers, they’re called — sure to eat him alive, he is Mickey 17. But somehow, he mi- raculously survives. And things really get complicated when he gets back to the ship and meets — what? — Mickey 18. Oh no! Suddenly he’s not only an Expendable, he’s a Multiple. This is bad news. Pattinson does double duty in the now-dual role, with one Mickey much more violent and nasty than the other as the two fight for survival. It’s his movie, and he saves it from Bong’s ten- dencies to overstuff the proceedings. In an extremely physical, committed, even exhausting performance, Pat- tinson takes what could have been an unwieldy mess and makes it much less, well, expendable. Hopefully he’s recovering well. — The Associated Press JOCELYN NOVECK MOVIE REVIEW MICKEY 17 Starring Robert Pattinson, Steven Yeun, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette ● Polo Park, Grant Park, Kildonan Place, St. Vital, McGillivray ● 139 minutes, 14A ★★★ out of five WARNER BROS. PICTURES Mark Ruffalo (left) and Toni Collette are the power couple from hell. WARNER BROS. PICTURES Robert Pattinson plays every version of the title character, including his evil 18th twin, in Bong Joon Ho’s dystopian followup to Parasite. OTHER VOICES The rage Bong Joon Ho shows towards the current state of the world is passionate and thoughtful, even when Mickey 17 appears to be spiralling out of control. — Andrew Parker, The Gate Bong Joon Ho’s customarily perfect pitch with actors gets lost, or at least scram- bled, in translation. Robert Pattinson deft- ly dodges this latter trap, and he doesn’t just save the film but deepens it. — Justin Chang, The New Yorker Robert Pattinson brings Jackass appeal to Mickey 17. —Kristy Puchko, Mashable Like Mickey himself, it’s goofy and a little inconsistent, but it’s also funny, thought- ful and more plausible than we might like. A charming space oddity for these unusual times. — Helen O’Hara, Empire Magazine Just as gritty and existential as fans need this revival to be 'YOU’RE guilty. That guilt, that shame — that’s my home, Red. And I can see it on you. I can smell it on you. It’s all over you.” Guilt, particularly the Catholic variety, is a living, breathing thing in Daredevil: Born Again. The new TV show — a revival and continuation of the three-season Netflix series now streaming on Disney+ and officially part of the Marvel Cinematic Uni- verse — is drenched in it, the emotion serving as both a reckoning of the past and a harbinger of what’s to come. But instead of drowning under that soul-crushing weight, Born Again faces it head-on in formidable fashion, tackling meaty subjects — disability, loss, justice and power — while offer- ing up the fantastically crunchy action you’d expect from the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. In Born Again (the first two episodes of which are now streaming), it’s been years since the events of Season 3 of the Netflix series, in which blind superhero Matt Murdock/Daredevil puts a stop to mob boss Wilson Fisk/ Kingpin (Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio, respectively, both reprising their roles in the new series). Now, Matt, a devout Catholic, has stashed away his devil-inspired, blood- red crime-fighting suit and is sticking to his day job as a defence lawyer. However, that reprieve from using his training (both in fighting techniques and honing his other senses to super- natural levels) is short-lived, with a gasp-inducing opening sequence that shatters any illusion that this revival wouldn’t be as gritty and brutal as its predecessor. Born Again, named after the 1986 comic book arc written by Frank Miller (but not actually adapting that comic), originally was meant to be an 18-episode season only loosely connected to the Netflix series, with a lighter tone and a more episodic structure. Thankfully, that didn’t end up happening (honestly, who wants a cheerful Daredevil?). Marvel brass stepped in, hired new writing and directing talent — in- cluding showrunner Dario Scardap- ane — split the season into two (nine episodes for this one, eight for Season 2) and reverted Born Again to being more serialized and connected to the previous series. It was the right call: despite seeing some of that original vision seep through at times (multiple episodes were already filmed before the creative pivot), the overall tenor of the revival feels appropriately mature, weighty with consequences and sur- prisingly patient with its plot. Speaking of, Born Again is a bit of a slow burn. We know Matt doesn’t want to be Daredevil anymore, that he wants to help people from inside the system. We know Wilson is out of jail and running to be mayor of New York City. We know they’ll eventually clash; Kingpin, like Thanos, is inevitable. It takes a few episodes for the story to really get up and running (especial- ly because there are some strange nar- rative off-ramps, like a way-too-long bank robbery sequence that brought the story to a halt), but once it does, Born Again becomes engrossing. Without spoiling details, it dives into the moral quandary of the value of vigilantism in a violent world, the difference between justice and vengeance, how power and access to it is a corrupting force, how a disability colours others’ perceptions of you, how guilt eats at you until there’s nothing left but grief and rage. But it’s the talent of Cox and D’Onofrio that elevates Born Again. Cox cloaks himself in the guilt that smothers Matt; he can shatter your heart with a rueful grin. D’Onofrio, on the other hand, can unnerve with the calmest of voices; you never know what to expect from him, and it’s disorienting. When they’re both on screen, the chemistry simmers with tension. Visually, Born Again is a step up from the Netflix series. Creative cam- era work abounds: a close-up of bloody knuckles, first Wilson’s, then Matt’s; a crimson filter as a bullet pierces someone; taillights reflected in a pair of eyes. Then there are the action sequences: When Daredevil and Co. do brawl out, it’s glorious. The quote that opened this review happens early in Born Again, during an unexpectedly cathartic conversa- tion between Matt and Frank Castle (a.k.a. the Punisher, played once again with gruff charm by Jon Bernthal), but it speaks to the heart of the revival: how do you move forward when all you can see is the past? Thankfully, while this first season ends on a bit of a cliffhanger (no sur- prise), we do have a sense of what’s to come in Season 2. And while we wait for that, this season delivers — and that feels like justice. — The Seattle Times DOMINIC BAEZ TV REVIEW DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN Starring Charlie Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio, Jon Bernthal ● TV-MA on Disney+ ★★★★ out of five MARVEL TELEVISION Charlie Cox (left) and Vincent D’Onofrio reprise their original roles as Matt Murdock/ Daredevil and Wilson Fisk/Kingpin, respectively, in the new series. ARTS ● LIFE I ENTERTAINMENT ;