The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
When Great Directors Miss: The Mickey 17 Experience
Sometimes great directors miss the mark completely. That's exactly what happened with "Mickey 17," the latest film from the Oscar-winning director of "Parasite." What should have been an exciting sci-fi dark comedy starring Robert Pattinson as an "expendable" colonizing an ice planet turned out to be a tremendous disappointment.
Despite assembling an impressive cast including Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, and Steven Yeun, the film wastes their considerable talents with a script that's more bizarre than brilliant. Ruffalo's character choices feel particularly jarring—an over-the-top caricature that seems to channel Donald Trump without adding any meaningful commentary. Meanwhile, Pattinson, who has proven his acting chops in films like "The Batman," is saddled with a goofy character and strange vocal delivery that undermines his natural abilities.
The fundamental problem with "Mickey 17" isn't its weird premise—it's that the weirdness doesn't serve any purpose. A dark comedy needs humor, yet this film provides none. A sci-fi adventure needs characters worth caring about, yet not a single personality in this movie inspires emotional investment. The random elements that could make for an interesting experimental film never coalesce into anything meaningful. While some viewers may find deeper artistic value here (just as many did with "The Shape of Water," another film that left me cold), I can only give "Mickey 17" one star out of five. If you're craving this director's work, skip this disappointment and rewatch "Parasite" instead—it remains a masterclass in filmmaking that "Mickey 17" fails to approach.
What's your most disappointing movie experience? Have you seen a follow-up film that completely failed to live up to a director's previous work? Share your thoughts and subscribe to catch next week's special Disney-themed episode!
The weekend's here. It's time to unwind. Grab your snacks, leave the week behind. Blockbusters classics, they're all on the way. Let's kick it off with Cinema Saturdays.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, welcome to a Cinema Sunday. That's right, this is not a Cinema Saturday episode, even though the theme song said it was. This is a Cinema Sunday because life happens and I wasn't able to record when I wanted to. So here I am with this cinema saturday episode on a cinema sunday. So last week I said I was going to be doing a double feature and one of those movies was going to be a movie I was going to see with my wife, but we decided to wait to go see it until it is available on streaming, because it's one of those movies that there's not a big like hey, I need to go see this in theaters, kind of feeling about it, not saying I don't think it's going to be a good movie. I do think it's going to be a good movie because it's by angel studios, but there wasn't like a big rush to go see it. So I only went to go see the other movie that I hinted at, which was Mickey 17, which is directed by the same person who directed the movie that Katie and I actually both really enjoyed Parasite. So before I can talk anything else about Mickey 17 17, I have to go over the synopsis. Mickey 17, known as an expendable, goes on a dangerous journey to colonize an ice planet. Mickey 17 stars robert pattinson, stephen yoon, michael monroe and Patsy Farren, and also Mark Ruffalo and Tony Collette Tony Collette, yeah. So where to begin? Parasite was a very surprisingly good movie.
Speaker 2:I originally was planning on re-releasing our parasite review because mickey 17, I thought, was supposed to come out like later this year, like in may, so two months from now. I thought it was supposed to come out, but then I saw that it was coming out when it came out, so I went to go see it, because I was already planning on going to see it and I didn't know what it was going to be, based on the trailer, except that it was the same director and it was completely different and not in a good way. This movie was not good to me. I know there's going to be a lot of people out there that are going to go see it. They're going to see the quote unquote message behind it. They're going to go see it. They're going to see the quote unquote message behind it. They're going to understand it. It's going to be one of those artsy films that everybody's like. This is brilliant. Another home run by this director.
Speaker 2:I thought it was boring, as I don't know what. To me it wasn't funny. It was supposed to be like a dark comedy. There was no humor in it. Mark ruffalo over the top character choices. I'm assuming he was supposed to be a donald trump character. That's the vibe I was getting, just by his voice, his mannerisms, and it just was not. It just wasn't good. It wasn't good.
Speaker 2:And I am a fan of Robert Pattinson as an actor. I know a lot of people give him a lot of grief because he decided to do the Twilight movies, which were like years ago. So people need to get over that. I thought he was brilliant in the Batman. I thought there are other movies that he's done outside of Twilight that he is acting is really good.
Speaker 2:This movie did not do him justice as an actor. His character was goofy, his voice was weird. Everything about this movie was was weird, which I guess that's kind of what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be a weird movie. The premise is weird. The characters are dumb. There's not one character, not even the Mickey characters. There's not one character in this movie that I care about, not a single one.
Speaker 2:There's not much more I can say about this movie. I hate when I go see a movie and I can't say anything positive about it. There's nothing good about this movie in my opinion, and that's the thing. Like I said before, there's going to be people out there that are going to listen to this and they're going to go see this movie and they're going to strongly disagree. I already know, because you know how I know that, because a bunch of people liked shape of water and I thought that was the worst movie I had ever seen. And I've seen some bad movies. Okay, I've seen some bad movies, this mickey 17 being one of them, and what's frustrating is is that it does have good actors in it. Mark ruffalo is a pretty decent actor, tony collette is a good actress, robert pattinson, again, is a good actor. So it's not that this movie didn't have good actors in it. Is that this? It's that the script was not good. There were just randomness all over the place, which I usually like random movies but this just didn't do it for me. It just didn't do it for me and, like I said, there's nothing, there's not a like I can talk about. There's nothing I liked about this movie. So this is going to be, yet again.
Speaker 2:Another short but sweet Movie review, episode Of Mickey 17. I'm going to give it. I'm sorry, robert Pattinson, but I'm going to give this movie A one out of five stars. It was not good. I wouldn't recommend it. But of course again, there's going to be people who go see it and will probably actually enjoy it. If you want to go see a movie by this director that was good, go watch parasite. It won best picture and katie and I weren't sure how we were going to feel about it and it was very surprisingly good. So go watch parasite. About it, and it was very surprisingly good. So go watch parasite. Don't watch this movie, go watch parasite. Next saturday I'm going to be doing something a little different. I'm going to watch a movie in preparation for the next saturday movie and to give you a hint of what that's going to be, take a listen to this clip Lips red as the rose hair black as ebony, skin white as snow.
Speaker 2:Now I'm not going to tell you what it is us some fan mail by clicking the send us a text link in the show notes so you can guess what movie am I preparing to go see by just that clip. So send us some fan mail. I'd love to hear from you. This has been the couch critic, where every movie gets its close-up.
Speaker 1:So grab a seat, let the credits play. We'll see you next for Cinema Saturdays.
