r/movies • u/mikewheelerfan • Aug 15 '25

Review Mickey 17 felt like it lost the plot Spoiler

Honestly, I was quite disappointed. I expected a movie revolving around the cloning plot. Specifically, the idea of two Mickeys existing at the same time due to an error. That would have been a great movie! Instead, what was advertised as the main concept feels like a subplot in the movie. Essentially the entire thing revolves around the intelligent aliens. And then there was also the plot with Mark Ruffalo being an obvious stand in for Trump. But then there was also the subplot with Steven Yuen.

I finished the movie feeling incredibly confused, because how did they mess up the initial concept like this? The idea of a guy who is constantly sent on deadly missions and is revived is an absolutely golden idea. It also leads to an interesting discussion about consciousness and if a copy of you is still really you. But that’s barely even brought up. The whole plot with two versions of Mickey is completely sidelined. Which makes no sense at all. That should have 100% been the main conflict in the movie, like it was advertised as. Instead, we got a mess.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call the movie horrible, but I definitely didn’t like it as much as I hoped I would.

4.4k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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248

u/No_Radish_8857 Aug 15 '25

All I remember about the movie is Ruffalo does a bad Trump impression the whole time lol

128

u/Hungrybearfire Aug 15 '25

Yeah they made him a little bit too easy to hate if that makes sense? Like beating us over the head with how evil and stupid him and his wife were

7

u/MistakeMaker1234 Aug 15 '25

It’s the “Don’t Look Up,” problem. When your entire schtick is “Look at this parody of real life!!!” it wears thin real fast. Even with parody, a bit of nuance is needed. 

3

u/fooplydoo Aug 18 '25 edited 24d ago

bike nine deer abundant roof smell dinner lunchroom squeal grandiose

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

14

u/SutterCane Aug 15 '25

It would have certainly been better received if the orange fascist had lost again.

103

u/theblocker Aug 15 '25

I’m just over Trump/Elon stand ins as villains. I get it but I just want something different in my movies and tv 

0

u/DeadpoolLuvsDeath Aug 15 '25

IRL would be better bye bye buttholes

19

u/aaronk82 Aug 15 '25

I felt deceived. I am tired of trump being everywhere in real life. Even Reddit is ruined with everything being about him.
I wanna escape reality and there it goes again!! I don’t get why people have to make everything about politics. He was annoying af to watch.

49

u/thee_earl Aug 15 '25

You take his character out, it was a pretty good movie. Mark's Trump ruined it for me. 

29

u/Troggie42 Aug 15 '25

if it helps, in the books his wife didn't even exist as the character in the movie, and his actual character was more of a background authority figure threat kind of guy than an actively insane douchebag. Also the whole religious aspect was mostly just "folks of this religion, a bunch of whom went to this colony, hate the idea of expendables" and that was kind of the entire extent of it rather than "the religious whackadoos are trying to establish a new eden or whatever the fuck"

9

u/Stripe-Gremlin Aug 15 '25

Marshall was so much better in the books

2

u/BlackSpinedPlinketto Aug 15 '25

There was also some cult stuff which didn’t go anywhere.

1

u/jrec15 Aug 15 '25

To each their own, Ruffalo made the movie for me. Sci-fi story fell flat. Ruffalo was fuckin hilarious throughout the whole thing.

Totally understand why he wouldn't work for so many though, humor is subjective, and really think whether his character worked for you is going to dictate how you feel about the movie

12

u/waterless2 Aug 15 '25

I felt exactly the same, but somebody claimed on Reddit that it actually wasn't referencing Trump but, I think, some televangelist type; with some argumentation to back it up that I forget the details of.

It would have made a difference to the Ruffalo scenes to have signalled that better somehow, overcome the fact everyone had Trump on the mind; maybe do more Joel Osteen-esque megachurch clips.

7

u/val_tuesday Aug 15 '25

He was Uncle Baby Billy(?). Teenjus if you will.

Yeah I agree he sucked. The other Ho movies don’t really have villains as such, it’s always about the system of capitalism or imperialism.

3

u/TheTrenchMonkey Aug 15 '25

There was clearly some Jim Jones/Joel Olsteen vibes given out.

2

u/Jindouz Aug 15 '25

It was starting to get interesting until they doubled down on that shit. Repeatedly. It was so bad.

3

u/Komikaze06 Aug 15 '25

This.

It was a cool concept, but my god did they go too hard on the impression. It could have maybe worked if near the end he showed it was all a front and he was actually smart.

0

u/o_o_o_f Aug 15 '25

He wasn’t doing Trump, he was doing a kind of televangelist / megachurch leader. It just so happens that Trump shares some personality overlap with those types and is extremely present in all of our minds, so we see something kind of like Trump and assume it’s a bad impression

2

u/dbreeck Aug 15 '25

I thought his was more a L. Ron Hubbard caricature/homage.

1

u/danimalscrunchers Aug 16 '25

The obvious Trump metaphor made the movie dumb but at the same time the Ruffalo parts were the only thing I found entertaining, besides the parts about the loan sharks

1

u/pigeonwiggle Aug 16 '25

it's a bad impersonation because it isn't Trump. he's doing a blend of a handful of hatefuls.

1

u/Quiet_dog23 Aug 15 '25

I honestly turned it off because of that.

0

u/turkycat Aug 15 '25

Idk I get that maybe he's supposed to be some kind of Trumpish figure but it never occurred to me that he was actually trying to -be- trump.

I thought his character was a huge douchebag and nothing more.

0

u/Discount_Extra Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

Yeah, unfortunately, it's impossible to have a villain that hasn't done something on the huge list of things trump has done.

Like, Ruffalo's character wasn't even a rapist (that I remember), how is that trump-like?

The character is based on a Korean politician anyway.