Robert Pattinson Versus Himself
NOTE: Dan Brown’s column will now be appearing twice a week on the website of L.A. Mood Comics & Games; on Tuesdays, he’ll write about graphic novels, and on Thursdays he will cover other pop-culture topics. By Dan Brown You know a movie star has made it when he faces off against . . . himself. The latest example is Robert Pattinson who – through the plot device of cloning – is his own worst nightmare in the movie Mickey 17, which landed in theatres March 7. But not just any actor can do battle with his own mirror image. A Hollywood star has to earn the right to trade blows with a doppelganger by achieving a certain stature first. He has to overcome every other possible enemy – gangsters, terrorists, Nazis, aliens – over a number of earlier movies for this career avenue to open up. The earliest example I can recall of the trend is when the character played by Jean-Claude Van Damme in 1991’s Double Impact pounded on his twin brother. Arnold Schwarzenegger fought his clone nine years later in The Sixth Day. Then Tom Cruise got in on the act in 2013 in the film Oblivion. Gemini Man in 2019 featured Will Smith hunting . . . Will Smith. Strangely, veteran tough guy Sylvester Stallone has never gone up against himself on the big screen. But I have to believe that at some point during the 1980s Stallone contemplated doing a project involving Rocky Balboa trying to punch John Rambo’s lights out. At that time, it would have been easy to get it greenlit. Even relatively young stars are going this route. Next month will see the release of Sinners, the Southern gothic vampire flick in which the ascendant Michael B. Jordan plays identical siblings. The smart money says it will include at least one scene of a scrap between them. You may also be aware Robert De Niro is currently playing two roles in Alto Knights, released last week; the two gangster characters are childhood friends, not twins, and critics have slammed the picture for being confusing for that reason. That’s how accustomed audiences have grown to this convention. The closest Bruce Willis ever got was when he played an older and younger version of the same bounty hunter in 2012’s Looper, so I don’t count that one, even if the two versions of the character were enemies.Nor do I include the 1988 Jeremy Irons movie Dead Ringers, since it was a thriller, not an action film. Also out is Mark Hamill’s brief encounter with his own dark side in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back – that case was a single scene, not the entire premise. As I mentioned above, not every actor has the necessary drawing power to play on a double bill with themselves. In Hollywood, you have to earn the right to be your own opponent by building up your filmography over a number of years and motion pictures. For that reason, starring opposite himself would make no sense for an actor in his debut film – he wouldn’t be that well-known. That’s why you have to work your way to the top, fighting other types of bad guys, before you can trade blows with your twin or clone. At a certain level of fame, a star is the only one audiences will buy with the necessary strength to go toe-to-toe with himself. By process of elimination in all his previous movies, he becomes the next logical adversary. I leave it up to you to decide if Pattinson fits that bill. I tend to give him a break since he has followed an unusual career trajectory, alternating smaller projects with blockbusters.You will notice I have used the male pronoun throughout this column, a choice I made from not being able to come up with any examples of women action stars being part of this trend. I would argue Linda Hamilton long ago had enough action cred to fight herself, perhaps in the form of a Terminator version of Sarah Connor. I would pay to see that.And we know from previous instalments that androids and cloning are part of the Alien universe. Who doesn’t want to see Sigourney Weaver star in Alien: Ripley vs. Ripley? Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
