MICKEY 17 (2025) review
written by: Bong Joon Ho
produced by: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Bong Joon-ho & Dooho Choi
directed by: Bong Joon Ho
rated: R (for violent content, language throughout, sexual content and drug material)
runtime: 137 min.
U.S. release date: March 7, 2024
After making history with his 2019 black comedy thriller “Parasite” by becoming the first non-English-language film to win a Best Picture Oscar, South Korean writer/director Bong Joon Ho has returned with “Mickey 17.” It’s his third English-language film since “Snowpiercer” and “Okja,” the auteur continues with thought-provoking and humorous science fiction. He also continues to explore unfortunately timeless themes, such as a dystopian Earth, socioeconomic inequality, capitalism, and the dangers of authoritarianism, in a wholly absorbing manner. While Bong adapts Edward Ashton’s 2002 novel Mickey 7, the film easily sits aside his filmography with the same signature style and penchant for biting satire. “Mickey 17” finds Bong working on a grander level, yet fully grasping a compelling and absurd narrative in the best ways.
The story is set in 2054, when much of humanity is set on leaving Earth using any available room on space expeditions searching for another planet to inhabit due to a tanked economy and severe weather storms. Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) is one such individual, who finds himself aimless after a failed attempt at a macaron store (they’re the new hamburgers!) with his pal, Timo (Steven Yeun). Both are now headed to space, which seems like a good way to elude the loan sharks after them. While Timo somehow signed up to be a pilot, Mickey put down “expendable” on his application without reading the job description, confirming the guy isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. They board a colonizing space vessel bound for an icy planet they call Nieflhelm, led by twice-failed politician, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), an insecure narcissist who relies on his wife, Yifa (Toni Collette), for support and guidance.
Mickey doesn’t realize that his job is to go out on whatever mission he’s assigned and die. That’s part of the fine print he didn’t read. He’ll be the first to go out and test an environment for any potential threats, such as radiation, lethal viruses, or poison gases. When he dies, the science branch of the crew prints out a new Mickey with the same memories and features, which is how we get to 17 of him. It’s probably the most dehumanizing built-in work hazard, but Mickey really didn’t have anything else going on. He had no other friends or family back on Earth, and definitely no significant other. He’ll soon grow tired of everyone asking him what it’s like to die.
Mickey’s situation doesn’t sound ideal, but he soon meets security agent, Nasha Barridge (Naomie Ackie), who he sees as the love of his life. She also sees something in the dim-witted, pathetic titular character, and despite entirely different jobs, the two become a secretive couple who develop an affinity for creative sex positions.
On one particular mission, the 17th Mickey winds up almost dead, a new experience for him. However, he is rescued by the indigenous isopod creatures (considered “creepy” by Marshall and therefore called Creepers, thanks to his wife) of the planet before he can make his way back to the colony. Also a new experience for him. When he does return, he discovers that Mickey 18 has been printed out after it was assumed Mickey 17 had died while on his mission. That’s another new experience for him that now presents a problem.
One “expendable” may be considered the lowest rung on humanity’s ladder, but “multiples” are frowned upon and considered an aberration. You’d think they’d take the hardest working expendable and just clone a bunch of them and call it a day, but that’s another movie. 17 isn’t prepared to deal with 18 and he’s especially taken aback by Nasha’s elated response to having two Mickeys. Mickey 18 is surprisingly different than 17 – what happened when they printed this one? He’s more assertive and dominant than any other Mickey, seemingly for no other reason than to add friction to the story and cause conflict for 17. Mickey 17 will have to step outside his usual boundaries and figure out who he wants to be and why.
It may be a challenge not to think about Bong’s last two ventures into sci-fi while watching “Mickey 17”. Although the material derives from Ashton’s novel, the look and tone (or tones) of “Mickey 17” certainly could be within the same realm that “Snowpiercer” and Okja” live in: enmeshed in social and political allegories to varying effect and unafraid to present uncomfortable and absurd albeit often funny bits laced throughout. It’s easy to laugh-out-loud here and the whole thing is very entertaining – even when it has its heavy-handed moments – thanks to the timing of Bong’s stellar cast.
For reasons beyond my understanding, there are still some out there who have an aversion to Pattinson. It could be they still only see him as a sparkly vampire, but that only tells us that they haven’t seen his varied and impressive work since the “Twilight” series. I don’t need to sell you on the actor, but his work with directors Cronenberg, Nolan, Eggers, the Safdies (to name a few) shows that he’s a versatile actor interested in new and different roles. The last time we saw him in space was in Claire Denis’ unsettling sci-fi horror film, “High Life” in 2018. Pattinson brings some of that disoriented physicality from that role to “Mickey 17”, while adding a fun and curious looseness to the sad-sack Mickey Barnes. His performance here, instead, his performances, bring a fun and grounded energy to the movie that highlight his range. I got a kick out of him here and would gladly watch “Mickey 17” again just for him and to revisit his fun chemistry with Ackie (who was so good in last year’s “Blink Twice” and continues to impress with each role).
The rest of the cast primarily maintain the dark humor and absurd satire of the movie, and while their work is solid, it would’ve been nice if there were a bit more to some of these supporting characters beyond that. Yeun is right at home with great comic timing and plays a character who could use a bit more screen time. The most significant supporting performances come from Ruffalo and Collette, who revel in the lack of subtlety for the sake of quirky comedy. Ruffalo is channeling the likes of Trump and Elon Musk here, while adding his own awkward affects. It’s a fun performance that would be a surprise if he hadn’t already surprised us in 2023’s “Poor Things”. As for Collette, she deserves more to do here. However, she has fun with what she’s given and her character has an unsettling proclivity for creating new sauce recipes. If you saw Tilda Swinton in “Snowpiercer” and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Okja”, that’s basically what these two are doing here. That’s fine, but it would’ve been more interesting to see less broad strokes for these characters and more complexity considering the potential of the actors playing them.
Despite how much Boon often puts characters through the ringer, there’s still an appreciation for humanity’s potential throughout his films. “Mickey 17” allows him to show how valuable we are as individuals. We see this as all Mickey Barnes’ copies are printed out, poked, and prodded. Once Pattinson faces another Pattinson, it’s likely the first time his character sees someone different when he looks at himself. At some point, we as individuals need to think outside whatever system or traditions we are hardwired in and examine ourselves. When we do that, we can then consider what it’s like to be alive rather than wondering what it’s like to die.
RATING: ***
