As wild as filmmaker Bong Joon Ho can get with films like Snowpiercer and The Host, it feels like he’s best known for his slightly more contemplative works, such as his Academy Award-winning Parasite and Memories of Murder. But his latest, Mickey 17, is something of a riotous commentary on working for a tyrant and the dangers of living under a single ruler who defines what is acceptable in every aspect of one’s life, including the definition of life itself.
Robert Pattinson (who we haven’t seen since 2022’s The Batman) plays Mickey Barnes, a financially destitute guy living on Earth who gets himself in a bit of a bind and needs to get off the planet as soon as possible. This being the future, living off-world is a reality, so he signs up to be an “Expendable” worker on the planet Nilfheim, run by the repugnant Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo, complete with ridiculous fake teeth that he has to act around) and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette).
Without really reading the fine print on what he’s signed up for, Mickey discovers that he is now a disposable worker sent into highly dangerous assignments that is he not expected to survive. Once he inevitably dies, he has a whole new body regenerated (it looks a lot like he’s being reprinted) and his mind and memories fed back into his new brain, making him a mostly flawless copy of the original Mickey. During one of his missions (as the 17th iteration of himself, Mickey 17), he is swarmed by the lifeforms that inhabit this planet (called “creepers” by the visiting earthlings), but rather than kill or eat him, they safely return him to his base where he crawls into bed and awakes to find Mickey 18 lying next him—created after everyone thought 17 was dead. Since by law two copies of the same person can’t exist at the same time, the film shows the challenge of keeping their dual existence from everyone else, since neither wants to be eliminated.
Other characters in the film include Nasha (Naomi Ackie), Mickey’s significant other who wants to keep both Mickeys alive for the kink of it all; Mickey’s friend Tiko (Steven Yeun), who gets him into all sorts of trouble and isn’t really his friend at all; and Kai Katz (Anamaria Vartolomei), a woman who falls for Mickey 17 because he’s a sweetheart and charmingly dense. We find out quickly that not all Mickeys are created equal, with 18 turning into an aggressive alpha male with something of a death wish. But the two Mickeys still manage to find a middle ground in order to prolong both of their lives while also fending off the colony’s oppressive leadership and befriending the local species when everyone else decides they need to be wiped off the planet to make room for the humans.
Based on the novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, Mickey 17 can be quite funny while also hitting the mark as far as social commentary goes. But Ruffalo’s portrayal of the dictatorial leader borders on the cartoonish, and not in a good way. He’s playing it far too broad, like he’s attempting to steal every scene by going over the top and fighting against his giant false teeth to get laughs that simply never come. As bad as Ruffalo can be, everyone else in the film is terrific, starting with Pattinson, whose Mickey has a somewhat higher-pitched (almost squeaky) voice. But we still get a sense of what's charming about him and why the women in his life find him attractive (aside from the fact that he looks a lot like Robert Pattinson).
Mickey 17 builds to a larger-scale action climax that pits the Creepers against Marshall’s forces, and while there are moments when the story attempts to tackle weightier issues about identity, unchecked power, and one group dominating another, much of those important topics are overshadowed by the film’s silliness and dominating desire to achieve comedic ends rather than more thought-provoking ones. It is possible to do both, but this one doesn’t quite get there. Which doesn’t make it a failure, it just doesn’t quite soar the way it wants to. Still, a near miss from director Bong is better than 90 percent of what other filmmakers are typically capable of, so it’s still worth seeing with slightly tempered expectations.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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