MOUNTAINHEAD (C+) - These two films were so forgettable I almost forgot to review them. "Mountainhead" -- a play on Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead" -- is a pitch-black comedy about four billionaire tech bros who gather at an isolated mansion while the world seems to be falling apart, the mayhem sparked by disinformation fed by their artificial-intelligence schemes.
These four old friends quickly descend into backstabbing over business opportunities, until it gets to the point where three of them literally try to kill the fourth, in bumbling comic style. This is the directing debut of writer Jesse Armstrong ("In the Loop," "Four Lions"), and the script is maddeningly faithful to tech-speak, as if an AI program tried to write David Mamet dialogue.
Jason Schwartzman is fun, as always, as the host at his Utah getaway. Steve Carrell, as the older mentor, does that mopey sad-sack thing that is rarely funny. Cory Michael Smith ("Carol," "Saturday Night") is fine as the alpha male Ven, and Ramy Youseff struggles to define his role as the one whose AI could save the planet from Ven's rampage. The four men never create a believable buzz, and we're always aware that this is a fictional exercise in what-if. Schwartzman is amusing, as the least wealthy of the bunch (only two commas) desperately pushing his meditation app Slowzo.
There is something to be had here about four rich jerks being so arrogant that they don't care about the destruction of the planet, but you also get the sense that Armstrong and his team might be just as thoughtless in how they go about the task at hand. Nothing gels here, and the self-aware over-written dialogue just consumes this whole thing by the end.
MICKEY 17 (C) - For us, "Parasite," was an outlier in the film canon of Bong Joon-ho. He is now back to his pulpy excess ("Snowpiercer," "Okja"), with an extraplanetary story here that, like its cloned main character, is insufferably repetitive and dour.
I admit, I mentally bailed on "Mickey 17" at some point and let it play out as background noise, for the most part. This is a relentless slog about the latest iteration of a kamikaze/suicide Expendable clone, Mickey 17 (Robert Pattinson, looking miserable), who, through a glitch, has to deal with Mickey 18. (Each Mickey is supposed to die in the service of science before the next version is 3-D printed -- a cool special effect. And Multiples are verboten.) Meantime, the Mickeys will do battle with a pal from Earth (Steven Yeun) and fall for the lovely Nasha (Naomie Ackie), a security agent on the fictional icy planet of Niflheim. They also have to deal with the expedition leader, a smarmy politician named Marshall (a goofy Mark Ruffalo) and his unctuous wife (Toni Collette).
Just try to follow the convoluted plot, either by viewing the film or trudging through the Wikipedia entry. Pattinson always looks like he'd rather be somewhere (or someone) else. I was embarrassed for Ruffalo and his outlandish makeup.
The storyline involving the native creatures battling the invading humans feels like a cheap video game. And would you believe there are the makings of a threesome involving both Mickeys? No one distinguishes themselves, especially Bong, who apparently gets to make any movie he wants, with final cut, even if it's a 137-minute intergalactic mess.
