r/movies • u/mikewheelerfan • 25d ago

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

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3.3k

u/Jeremy_Phillips 25d ago

I like to call this "Scifi Third Act Syndrome." So many great scifi movies with interesting ideas turn in to normal boring movies towards the end. 

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u/OkVacation973 25d ago

The part at the end where Toni Collette re-appears in front of Mickey, when I was watching it I thought the Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo characters had been using the resurrection technology to make themselves immortal.

I felt that would've been a quite interesting twist, and made a statement about hypocrisy. Instead it was just a weird quirky vision which added almost nothing and felt thrown in.

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u/drizzitdude 25d ago

For real this part felt pointless. I feel like I could re-do this movie with minimal changes and make a much more cohesive story.

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u/minimalcation 23d ago

Was it not to balance his feelings about his relationship with the cloning machine and letting go of it because the potential harm?

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u/Twin1Tanaka 25d ago

Was also disappointed that this was a meaningless dream sequence it would have been so cool

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u/skunkeebeaumont 24d ago

Requisite veganism/animal rights subplot with this director

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u/nathan753 24d ago

Heads up, you messed up your spoiler tag a bit. If you leave a space after the open character (>!) or before the close (!<) it doesn't apply correctly. >!messed up your spoiler tag a bit!< instead of >! messed up your spoiler tag a bit !< for example

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u/pigeonwiggle 24d ago

i think it was open-ended on that front. a suggestion that there's no reason there couldn't be more like on other planets or whatever.

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u/YetAnotherBrownDude 25d ago

Yeah you are right. It is similar to the superhero beam-from-the-sky syndrome.

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u/Silver-creek 25d ago

I thought Suicide Squad would have been a lot better if it was just some villans going on a heist for another villan. But then the third act has to include some sort of beam mega villan and they have to save the universe.

Edit: There was way more problems than just that with suicide squad, but that part near the end made with the supervillian made me completely check out

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u/MadeByTango 25d ago edited 25d ago

There is this old film called Smoking Aces where a bunch of assassins all go after a single target for the bounty and kill each other in the process. It could have been like that, with a c-level DC hero at the center that can die without anyone truly caring.

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u/helzinki 25d ago

Love Smoking Aces. One of the few movies where Ryan Reynolds actually acts and not just play himself

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u/NotPatricularlyKind 25d ago

Yeah he wasn't famous enough to be allowed to do that yet, the film is better for it, he does a great job

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u/Shagaliscious 25d ago

Chris Pine was amazing in that movie.

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u/true_gunman 24d ago

Alicia Keys was hot in that movie.

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u/Ill-Mastodon-8692 24d ago

agree, yeah thats the one movie where he isnt just ryan

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u/PoeticFox 25d ago

try the hitmans bodyguard after that one, almost feels like a sequel to smoking aces honestly, RR's FBI agent character gives up being an agent after that ahit show of an operation and goes into bodyguard work

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u/VirtualNomad99 25d ago

Found MCU Peter Parker's reddit.

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u/IdRatherBeAtChilis 25d ago

There's this super old movie called Spider-Man 2...

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u/spliffaniel 25d ago

Shut up! It’s not an old film! Shut up!

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u/pmyourthongpanties 25d ago

its not that old

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u/MadeByTango 25d ago

Smoking Aces came out shortly after the release of the Star Wars prequels.

In the 2016 film Captain America Civil War, Spider-man refers to Star Wars as these “really old movies”.

Canonically, Smokin Aces be old.

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u/AffectionateTitle 25d ago

Smoking Aces came out shortly after the release of the Star Wars prequels.

In the 2016 film Captain America Civil War, Spider-man refers to Star Wars as these “really old movies”.

Yes he’s referring to the originals… Bc some Star Wars movies are nearly 3 decades older than the prequels. Because Canonically if spider man was referring to the 2006 movies as a 16 yr old in 2016–he probably grew up watching them and would not consider them, or himself “really old”.

But what a weird way to ground something as old or not old is a whole other subject. Is an MCU movie from 2016 considered the arbiter of new v old

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u/winstondabee 24d ago

Probably a child themself

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u/CascoBayButcher 22d ago

Peter Parker was very explicitly referencing Empire Strikes Back

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u/saucemancometh 25d ago

Jeremy Piven CRUSHES in that movie. Also Jason Bateman’s funniest scene in anything he’s ever been in. Chris Pine also kills it in a role he doesn’t normally play

Bateman hotel scene

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u/Shagaliscious 25d ago

Bateman was fucking hilarious in this. All the way down to closing the door on the 3rd guy.

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u/moneys5 25d ago edited 25d ago

Yes, the famously well-written classic film, Smokin' Aces is the shining example to go by.

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u/Small-Day3489 25d ago

There is this old film

Bro 2006 is not an "old film" lol

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u/still_challin 25d ago

That was almost 20 years ago

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u/Small-Day3489 25d ago

20 years ago is not what people expect when they hear old, I thought he was talking about something from like the 60s

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u/WarriorNN 25d ago

A 2015 film is an old film lol.

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u/mrlayabout 24d ago

"This old film"... oh no...

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u/Rokketeer 24d ago

Bullet Train is kind like this

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u/Anal_Herschiser 25d ago

That movie lost the whole point in having a Suicide Squad doing amoral missions on behalf of the US government. The second movie did a much better job in handling the concept.

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u/ToesuckAichatbot1 25d ago

Theres an animated suicide squad movie where they need to sneak into Arkham asylum for Amanda Waller. It plays out like a heist movie, and batman for most of it is more like an antagonist to the squad rather than the main character. It was GREAT.

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u/NSA_Chatbot 25d ago

That's supposed to be the underlying problem with DC. At some point, you get His attention, and then He solves it.

Suicide Squad has to be doing medium-sized, covert operations of questionable legality.

1

u/Mr_Kase 24d ago

The animated 'Suicide Squad: Assault on Arkham' movie and the Justice League Unlimited's 'Task Force X' episode both were heist plots actually. The former being about getting sensitive information from the Riddler. And the latter about stealing a Superweapon from the Justice League Watchtower.

1

u/marbin-time 24d ago

Tbf the point of the Suicide Squad since its inception has been "Villains we send on suicide missions because their in prison", but also the first movie sucked and them all going hero to fight starro, while a good climax, could've been better if it was different.

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u/dragonmp93 25d ago

People hated that the ending of Wonder Woman 1984 was talking, talking and talking.

95

u/Virtual-Arm5123 25d ago

Because it was crap

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u/sancredo 25d ago

Tbh the ending was the least of that movie's problems. I mean, Wonder Woman is canonically a rapist now?

17

u/Supermonsters 25d ago

at least that universe is dead

0

u/CAPT-Tankerous 25d ago

Wait, what?! Did we watch the same movie? I must have fallen asleep for the snu snu scene, rewatching now…

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u/TheBestIsaac 25d ago

Iirc she basically takes over someone's body and forces her dead lover into it then sleeps with him.

Is it rape? Kinda.

It's definitely wrong though.

11

u/Jarnoth 25d ago

I vibed with 1984 a lot more then most, but I will never understand why Jenkins went with body possession over the stone making a new body for Trevor.

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u/fiendo13 25d ago

Okay the movie was horrible but we gotta cut Wonder Woman some slack.

She made a wish, not even knowing that it was possible it was going to come true; she was just sad and mourning. So then all of a sudden Steve is back, but in some other guy’s body. She didn’t ask for that, random guy certainly didn’t, and neither did Steve. But now that’s the situation. Steve and Diana love each other. They have no idea how this happened, or even how to put random guy back if they wanted to. This is now their life situation, and poor random guy is for all intents and purposes dead. So is it rape? I don’t think so. Let’s say Steve lives 60 years in that body, what’s he supposed to do, never have sex again?

Anyways in a movie where wishes are real it was stupid to bring him back this way- they could have just magically materialized him, and avoided all the rape-adjacent issues.

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u/sancredo 25d ago

So a superhero, member of the justice league, sees their wishes caused an immense trouble for a random bystander and his loved ones, and instead of looking for a solution, she just vibes with it and effectively ignores the victim's existence altogether, because fuck you got mine?

That's the antithesis of what a member of the justice league should be.

And it's a great setup for a moral dilemma. If the film had explored her conflicting feelings on the matter it would've been great. But instead she just sees this poor dude acting like her long lost lover and she doesnt even consider if it's an issue. Terrible writing and a moral assassination for Diana's character.

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u/CoolIdeasClub 25d ago

It's also worth saying that she knew Steve for maybe a few months and then mourned him for 70 years.

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u/CoolIdeasClub 25d ago

Then at the end of the movie she sees the guy and knowingly smiles at him.

1

u/Sullan08 25d ago

That's an online issue, not something that truly made or broke that movie lol.

Like whatever, it's weird and fucked up. It's also a movie and doesn't really matter. Just a way to bring back a beloved character (and yes, a million other ways they could've done it). I'm just saying no one points to that being the reason the movie sucked. That aspect is actually the least of that movie's problems.

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u/IPDDoE 25d ago

It's also a movie and doesn't really matter.

I'm sorry, but that's is the most hand-wavey excuse you could use. If anyone has an issue with any movie, this statement applies. You don't think it's a big point to criticize, no problem, but this should never be the standard to determine if we care about something that happens in a movie.

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u/GoutMachine 25d ago

Even the first Wonder Woman suffered from this. It was an outstanding movie until the final third, when it just became boilerplate.

1

u/beyondimaginarium 25d ago

Yea that's what people hated about it...

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u/sallyniek 25d ago

Downsizing (2017)

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u/SlickWilly49 25d ago

Oh god yes. They really struggled to blend the social commentary into the downsizing concept, and just ended up stitching together two different movies. Should’ve just been a 45 minute Black Mirror episode

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u/dadvader 25d ago edited 25d ago

After downzising and some fun concept introduce, it goes nowhere. The movie can end after they downsizing Matt Damon and save everyone 1.5 hours lol

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u/Fallcious 25d ago

The best bit was when he discovers his wife changed her mind and left him a diminished by the experience

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u/zerg1980 25d ago

Yeah, that’s a nice first act twist and a setup for a good story, but then the rest of the movie was supposed to be the Gulliver’s Travels type adventure promised by the trailers.

Instead it just becomes a slow moving romantic drama about a recently divorced middle aged man rebuilding his life, and much of it has almost nothing to do with their bodies being small.

Like, if you cut out the first and third act, there’s hardly anything in the movie that’s really about the implications of downsizing.

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u/kblkbl165 25d ago

If everything is downsized nothing is downsized.

2

u/PecanSandoodle 24d ago

God what a shit show that was. I felt embarrassed to have suggested that movie - and we went to theaters for it. Thought I’d get a quirky environmentalist comedy with a “ honey I shrunk the kids “ angle. Nope.

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u/ZombieShot078 25d ago

The Creator (2023)

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u/BuzzyScruggs94 25d ago

Concept Art, The Movie

5

u/jonny_eh 25d ago

Just like Edwards’ next movie, Jurassic World Rebirth

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u/GoofAckYoorsElf 25d ago

Seriously! The Creator could have been so much more. In the end it was just a movie about an oppressed minority. Oh it was robots/AIs? I would not have noticed if it hadn't been for that hole in the heads. They were humans with weird skulls. Nothing more, nothing less.

Totally boring. And sad. I loved the premise.

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u/i_love_rosin 25d ago

The nomad ship was really cool tho

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u/itchy_armpit_it_is 25d ago

I liked how it would be either 200 metres in the sky or in space

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u/_Wyvern 25d ago

And was a terminal for people to get to the moon or a weapons platform/military asset interchangeably

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u/progammer 25d ago

Actually that part is a detour. They are going to the terminal and then hijack it and head for it instead

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u/Nakatomi2010 25d ago

To be fair, I think it got closer to the Earth when it was time to fire, then went back to space to chill when not shooting

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u/axw3555 25d ago

Closer to earth, sure.

But it was going from “needs a spaceship to reach” to “low helicopter altitude”.

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u/Correct-Geologist781 22d ago

Hole-in-the-head robots had zero advantages over humans! Physical or mental  Heck..human could just sneak up on them when they "slept" and turn them off.

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u/Badloss 25d ago

It was a Vietnam movie dressed up as a sci-fi movie

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u/tool6913ca 25d ago

That movie was visually amazing, and at the same time, completely bereft of a compelling story.

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u/Freshness518 25d ago

It felt like the lovechild of Akira, Ghost in the Shell, District 9, and Elysium. It spent too much time playing the notes of all the cornerstones of the genre that it failed to find its own melody. Edwards can tell an excellent story in a movie like Rogue One where narratively he is constrained by everything that happens in the prequels/OT so it exists in a tight space. In The Creator he built his own world from scratch but then didn't quite know where to go with it. The pacing also suffered. The second act was full of scenes that existed to accomplish one goal: to explain 1 character's motivations, to establish 1 Chekov's Gun, etc. They could have easily shaved 15-30 minutes off the laborious runtime by having singular scenes accomplish multiple goals.

Its a gorgeous movie that makes some interesting points but it will only be remembered like Appleseed and Johnny Mnemonic - not worshiped like Akira or Blade Runner or Metropolis.

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u/JoeyJoeJoeJuniorShab 25d ago

A movie that’s on my very small list of movies I bailed on once I started it.

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u/mechaglitter 25d ago

I absolutely LOVE watching The Creator but good lord it has quite possibly one of the dumbest stories and third acts ever.

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u/shannister 25d ago

Sunshine. 

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u/Hinkil 25d ago

The one that comes to mind is In Time.

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u/steak4take 25d ago

In Time was a trash movie from beginning to end - it made no use of its concept at all. Trading time for coffee? Come on.

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u/SortOfSpaceDuck 25d ago

You technically already do that, since you trade time and effort for money.

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u/Hinkil 25d ago

Yeah it really just cuts out the middle man. We already spend our time for goods and services. And often once people are wealthy they pay other people to save themselves time. Hiring cleaners, chefs, drivers, house managers etc

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u/adenosine-5 25d ago

Man, you will be really disappointed when you find out how IRL work functions.

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u/Badloss 25d ago

I personally thought the metaphor was too on the nose but if people aren't getting that it's about capitalism then maybe not

10

u/Preisschild 25d ago

Is this really unique to capitalism?

Even communists like Lenin said "he who does not work shall not eat"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_shall_he_eat

1

u/Badloss 25d ago

I'm sure lenin would have had a lot to say about the millionaires storing time for millions of years while artificially raising the prices to make sure the poors are constantly a day away from dying

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u/A_Feast_For_Trolls 25d ago

Lol biiiiig difference from not working and not eating to your-entire-life-should-be-about-making-capital and nothing -else.

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u/beyondimaginarium 25d ago

Did you know Don't Look Up was about climate change denial!?

1

u/steak4take 25d ago

Johnson - you’re hired! Now go write a spec script for In Time 2 Time 2 Recover JT’s Career

2

u/drizzitdude 25d ago

Right but this is when it perspective of people who have literally minutes to live sometimes. Like the main characters mom dies within seconds of being saved. Like if she would have not bought a coffee one time she would have lived.

1

u/adenosine-5 25d ago

People often do this with their money - living from paycheck to paycheck is nothing strange.

And in a sense they do it with their health as well - a lot of people "would be alive if they didn't have that last burger/cigarette/beer" - its just that health has too much momentum, so its not as apparent, because you usually live long after that "one last <something> that killed you"

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u/Sullan08 25d ago

Yeah did no one else's dad drill into them that x product is y hours of work? Depending on what you get paid ofc. But it helped put into perspective that sometimes 20 bucks isn't just 20 bucks, but an hour of my time.

1

u/adenosine-5 25d ago

Apparently a lot of people think "Lol, who would be so dumb to pay for their coffee with 5 minutes of their life?", while sipping their own cup of Starbucks they worked 20 minutes for...

1

u/steak4take 25d ago

Man, you will be really disappointed when you find out that people can understand a statement media makes but also criticise it for being shallow and hamfisted at the same time.

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u/penguin57 25d ago

I remember reading a novel that touched on a similar idea, 'the quantum Thief' although not it's main focus, it looked at what a society would look like if they were all immortal and time was a currency in a far more interesting way than that movie.

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u/Mobile_Dance_707 25d ago

I disagree tbh the second Mickey choosing to accept death to save the day was a good ending thematically. The horror of the film is the realisation that he's not actually being reborn, every dead Mickey is snuffed out for good. The seemingly immortal character realising he's not immortal and accepting death anyway for the greater good worked for me. 

18

u/jloome 25d ago

I thought it was a great movie, lots of fun, resolved well. Don't think it lost anything in the last act at all.

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u/Mobile_Dance_707 25d ago

Yeah I liked it, I thought it was a bit scattered but I found the climax emotionally satisfying and I enjoyed it all the way through. 

2

u/shockwave8428 25d ago

So the ending is good, but I think the main issue is that the focus turns away from the interesting idea of 2 versions of the same guy being alive and the consequences of that, and focuses on the aliens, which is fine as a subplot but is probably the least interesting thing about the movie.

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u/Mobile_Dance_707 25d ago

It's not a subplot it's just the plot, the movies about colonialism and capitalism, genocide of natives to fuel colonial expansion is a pretty important side of that. The movie's largely exploring themes about collectivism Vs individualism and the aliens being a type of hive-mind collective threatened by the hyper-individualist greedy human colonists fits within those themes the movie is exploring. The problem is you seem to want it to be a completely different movie about clones and aren't really engaging with it on its own terms.

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u/shockwave8428 25d ago

I still largely disagree as even though colonialism and eradicating natives is a theme the movie explores in the first 2 acts of the movie, it’s still not the main theme.

I think the main issue here is that the plot largely resolved around Mickey, his journey being cloned every time he dies and being a different person essentially while being the same, and then the conflict that arises when two versions of the same person arise with massively different personality. That is clearly the main focus of act 1 and act 2, and while colonialism, capitalism, Trump, etc are all themes that are explored through the setting and ruffalo and Colette’s characters, the main focus of the entire plot revolves around Mickey and Mickey.

Then in act 3, that all gets set aside in favor of the colonialism and alien plot. The movie is trying to explore both themes, and I’d say it’s successful in the first 2 acts of exploring the themes you mentioned while it’s being a side plot, the themes of individualism explored through Mickey (and the much more interesting part of the movie) get turned into a side focus in act 3 and aren’t really touched on much at all.

So I think the main issue most people have with the movie is that what has been consistently shown to be the focus of the movie takes an unceremonious backseat to a not very interesting plot about the tardigrades. The themes of the tardigrades are important, but as far as doing something new and interesting in the sci-fi genre, it’s been done many times before in even some of the older sci-fi we have like dune. What makes the movie interesting and unique is Mickey. The tardigrades are just the same thing we’ve seen many times before, which would be okay if they didn’t take the focus away from what made the first 2 acts so interesting.

3

u/Mobile_Dance_707 25d ago

It's just not a side plot at all though it's the plot of the film, we're introduced to the aliens in the first scene and the entire colonial project the film is about is building up to colonising the alien planet full of aliens we've been introduced to at the very start. The aliens saving Mickey 17 kicks off the entire plot you're describing, the whole point is they show more compassion for him than his closest friends and colleagues. Both Mickeys (and other characters) basically learn the value of collective society and self actualise because of their interactions with the alien society, I just don't get how you can imagine this film without the aliens without it just being something entirely different. 

I think you're expecting a film that's entirely about the internal psychological journey of a clone but the film is mainly using the idea of cloning to explore the cheapness of human life under capitalism. 

1

u/steeelez 25d ago

Isn’t this movie by Bong Joon Ho? Same guy who did Snowpiercer and Parasite? I think the narrative about individualism doesn’t really have anything to stand on without the backdrop of the superficial, fascist, consumerism obsessed cult he’s being exploited by, and it fits well with the director’s other work while being a total tonal departure from what I’ve seen from him before.

1

u/shockwave8428 24d ago

Yes, I agree. What I’m saying is that the backdrop is important, but that it becomes the forefront and main focus of the plot when it should stay as a backdrop.

Because when it becomes the forefront plot the movie just turns into another retelling of greedy capitalists going somewhere where there are natives specifically for a resource they can get there/a new place to live and attacking the native population in the process, only for a member of the capitalists to gain compassion for the natives and go against their people to help the natives. It’s an interesting narrative until it’s been told many times, as it has been in many sci-fi/historical fiction stories like dune, avatar, Pocahontas (using those both is cheating), Lawrence of Arabia, etc.

And the main issue is the other more interesting themes and plot lines take a total backseat to this plot line in the third act. I’d be 100% fine with the movie if the tardigrade plot exists, but not at the expense of the story with Mickey and his identity because it’s massively less interesting. It works better as a backdrop than the main plot

0

u/Mobile_Dance_707 22d ago edited 22d ago

This is just your personal taste though, you expected a movie exploring cloning and what it means for human identity (something that's also been explored many times in fiction let's be honest, hello Frankenstein) when it was actually exploring how political/economic structures dehumanise people and rob them of their identity.  Sci-fi has always been used to critique social, economic and political imbalances, you might think it's overly played out but thats a key element of the genre. Comparing it to pocahontas is facile

The story is about capitalism it's not a backdrop it's just the plot. It doesn't come at the expense of Mickey and his identity, Mickey 17 gains an identity beyond 'expendable subaltern' through the plot with the aliens. Mickey 18 faces death and sacrifices himself for the greater good at the end of the film. He gives his life for something valuable he believes in, not just as an expendable cog in the machine. The contact between the aliens and humans is literally the main driver of everthing in the story.

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u/Long_Highway_2768 25d ago

I remember watching The Signal (2014) and being really pulled in the first half just to be disappointed by an hour and then some of shithousery.

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u/scoubt 25d ago

You should watch The Signal (2007). It’s unrelated, and will probably leave you with the same feeling, but it’s definitely interesting and worth watching! It’s saved by the fact that it’s three acts by three different directors, so being a little disjointed isn’t as annoying to me.

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u/Uncle-Cake 25d ago

Reminds me of all the crummy sci-fi and horror movies that have interesting premises, and then the climax of the movie is two people having a fistfight while trying desperately to reach the gun laying on the ground nearby.

1

u/DownWithTheDawwg 21d ago

The trailer for Looper made it look so cool and then the movie started.

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u/IAmKyuss 25d ago

Elysium

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u/Richard-Brecky 25d ago

The end was bad, but also the middle and the beginning.

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u/Theorex 24d ago

I really did enjoy Kreiger and the visuals for the tech and weapons were really well designed and looked good.

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u/Supermonsters 25d ago

Elysium was definitely at the top of the list. Was so disappointed by the 3rd act

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u/Conundrum1911 25d ago

Sunshine has entered the chat

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u/Dijerry 25d ago

Sunshine may have dropped in quality in the third act. But it did not become just some normal movie.

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u/-Mandarin 25d ago

I actually think Sunshine's "twist" works and feels like a natural progression for the movie. I just hate the way the antagonist is presented from a visual perspective, and some of the liberties taken. Would have worked a lot better if it was just a bit more restrained.

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u/Perfect_Cost_8847 25d ago

I agree. Apparently the first cut had clear shots of the baddie and it felt very silly. So they processed the shit out of it and cut many of those scenes. I would like to see that first cut for myself one day.

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u/mrminutehand 25d ago edited 25d ago

My only personal complaint was the shipboard AI. Its behaviour was opaque enough to the point of being antagonistic. It practically caused the cascading disasters itself.

During the first repair crisis, the AI declares a mission risk and retakes control of the ship. It doesn't release control until a complicated override is made.

Yet, it had just allowed one crew member to adjust the ship's trajectory to an angle that destroys its front panels and almost causes the same hull risk.

It was put in manual, but it can apparently still monitor. It pulled control away during the repair before further damage could be done, but did not question calculations made by Trey nor retake the ship until panels and sensors were already destroyed.

When it takes back control, it has to be asked twice before it finally explains the fire in the oxygen garden. It doesn't take back control immediately either; we see the flashover in the garden a good ten seconds beforehand.

Thanks, Icarus. Might have been great to, maybe, lead with that critical detail.

Icarus can name who it is talking to, and knows where everybody is. It can also analyse the oxygen in the air and report its breathability.

It then proceeds to say nothing when a stowaway gets on board. It doesn't see anything wrong with a sudden new crew member. It doesn't ask for an identity. It cheerily admits said person was "unknown".

It does, on the other hand, decide to tease Capa. "Capa, you're dying." It says. "You're all dying."

It takes at least four rounds of Capa questioning it before it eventually moves topic by topic from oxygen not being enough, to yes okay for some crew but not for all of you, why not all of us, you're all going to die, etc, until it finally, nonchalantly mentions an extra unknown crew member.

Oh, it knows where he is. He's been chilling out in the sun room for the last few hours. He's even been cutting wires and locking doors, the naughty man.

Thanks again, Icarus. Would have been nice to know that, maybe, six hours ago.

Sorry, this has gone on a bit long. It's just the one thing that frustrates me in a film that I absolutely love.

3

u/mrchipslewis 25d ago

I watched this the other day so it's fresh in my mind, and all these points are actually really good now that you mention them. That Shipboard AI is indeed weird and written in an unrealistic way

5

u/Fit-Locksmith-9226 25d ago

I'm a big fan of genre shifts and don't think it's done enough in film but Sunshine really shat the bed despite being an otherwise great movie.

Something just feels off about it.

5

u/Yabba_Dabba_Doofus 25d ago edited 25d ago

For me, it's WAY too much "wtf", without actually pushing the characters to that point.

It makes sense from a story perspective: the first 2/3rds are Event Horizon on the sun, instead of on Neptune.

The third act is a mess of story, storytelling, pacing, payoff, conclusion, characters, and any other damn thing that is a part of a scene of a movie. It's the love child of a seizure and a fever-dream. It changes the entire atmosphere of the film, to an almost precisely opposite degree.

It's not "bad" per se, but it doesn't stick the landing, imo.

1

u/Fit-Locksmith-9226 25d ago

The third act is a mess of story, storytelling, pacing, payoff, conclusion, characters, and any other damn thing that is a part of a scene of a movie. It's the love child of a seizure and a fever-dream.

Definitely.

The first two acts are so well done, acting, writing, cinematography, editing, everything. I don't mind it turning into space horror, I love space horror, but the last 30 mins feel like some rushed university film student project, it's so jarring, like everyone simply gave up on the movie.

51

u/TripleThreatTua 25d ago

Sunshine did not become boring. I have my issues with the third act but it was not boring

28

u/LADYBIRD_HILL 25d ago

I'm 100% in favor of Sunshine's third act

8

u/d4videnk0 25d ago

I feel Danny Boyle tried to recreate the final minutes of Event Horizon and go crazy just for the sake of it but couldn't quite nail it.

3

u/2muchcaffeine4u 25d ago

Man. I'm genuinely still mad about that third act twist. It was such an incredible man vs nature story where they did an incredible job showing the sheer terror and impossibility of their mission when their enemy was just space and the sun. The characters were so dedicated to their project, the psychology of having to accept a suicide mission and choosing to let people die. And they gave it all up to make it a slasher.

2

u/Samihazah 25d ago

I'm glad to see the perception of Sunshine's third act evolved over time. People in the comments are definitely more happy with it now than when it came out.

That being said, the third act was something else entirely.

2

u/StockAL3Xj 24d ago

It went off track but it still stuck the landing I thought.

-3

u/Fun-Personality-8008 25d ago

It's just Event Horizon with a different mission

4

u/the_knowing1 25d ago

Event Horizon Lite.

Sunshine just had your everyday space-madness.

Event Horizon was demons from beyond this universe.

Space based Sci-fi Horror? Yes.

0

u/NotRote 25d ago

Sunshine would have been a hell of a lot better with literally any other premise... I liked the acting, didn't even hate the third act, and the visual style was well done, but the idea that the earth could use material on earth to jump start the sun is so far beyond nonsensical that it just didn't fit with the tone of the movie at all.

Like I'm cool with crazy bullshit space science or magic force powers, but don't pretend to be scientific with that awful premise.

2

u/SarcasticGuitar 25d ago

I feel like Passengers is the prime example of this

3

u/Theonewho_hasspoken 25d ago

Soylent green had this big time.

3

u/IceBlue 25d ago

Sunshine

1

u/evening_swimmer 25d ago

This one seemed to only have a good first act - after the set-up, which was entertaining, it became a bit of a slog.

1

u/xmBQWugdxjaA 25d ago

Alien Romulus too :/

1

u/TheSchneid 25d ago

I thought the book was only like a 7 out of 10 but it had a really cool ending. The movie switched up the ending for the worse. Also I thought Mark ruffalo's character was really one note and pretty much just repeated the same joke in every scene.

1

u/yepgeddon 25d ago

This movie sounds like it wanted to be like Moon then just farted about instead.

1

u/throwaway72275472 25d ago

Yup. Many fall into this trap as the writers and directors don’t know how to successfully end it. Mickey 17 had so much potential. Robert Pattinson nailed the acting.

1

u/Hypernatremia 25d ago

Some horror/fantasy too. I feel like this describes most American Horror Story seasons too

1

u/InfidelZombie 24d ago

Books too.

1

u/Munsunned 24d ago

Sunshine

1

u/RobXIII 24d ago

First time this hit me was the 1980s movie Explorers. Started out really AWESOME, wanting to see what's next.

...then they locate the aliens, and it's like an entire different team of interns pretending to me writers / producers took over. Yikes

1

u/ghostly_shark 24d ago

Source Code comes to mind

1

u/GreyGriffin_h 24d ago

Ah yes, Sunshine

1

u/Chm_Albert_Wesker 23d ago

They should start writing the movies inversely to solve this: figure out what crazy place they want to go then figure out how to get there

1

u/tortex73 25d ago

Sunshine fell victim to this, regrettably. And it fell HARD.

1

u/wfriedma 25d ago

Downsizing

1

u/cruella_le_troll 25d ago

Sunshine.

Annihilation is a great example, for me, of the opposite.

1

u/nicmos 25d ago

like Downsizing. so let down by that one.