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Mickey 17 (R)

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette

Release Date: March 7, 2025

Runtime: 2 hr. 17 mins.

Genre: Action/Adventure, Science Fiction

From the Academy Award-winning writer/director of “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho, comes his next groundbreaking cinematic experience, “Mickey 17.” The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living.

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Review

Celebrated South Korean writer/director Bong Joon Ho has a resume any self-respecting filmmaker would envy, with titles like Memories of Murder, Snowpiercer, Okja, and the Oscar-winning Parasite shining the brightest. Sadly, Bong's latest, an adaptation of Edward Ashton's Mickey 7, has a considerably lesser magnitude. In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to argue this is the worst film Bong has made. A mostly failed attempt to merge sci-fi with satire, Mickey 17 suffers from a fragmented narrative and a scenery-chewing performance from Mark Ruffalo that belongs in a different movie (perhaps Poor Things).

Many of Bong's previous films have been allegorical but none has adopted such a ham-fisted approach. There's nothing subtle to be found here and the obviousness of his political messaging (which addresses subjects like wealth disparity, colonialization, authoritarianism, and racial purity) obstructs viewer engagement with the story; it's too up-front. This is most obvious in the acting of Mark Ruffalo (playing the megalomaniacal leader Kenneth Marshall) and Toni Collette (as Marshall's wife, Ylfa). These two are so over-the-top that their characters' repugnant personalities are submerged beneath a thick layer of buffoonery. Ruffalo makes no attempt to hide the target of his lampooning - he might as well be auditioning to replace Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live. This might work if Mickey 17 was a pure farce or if Bong was more adept at emulsifying the satirical and the serious, but it falls flat and takes significant swaths of the movie with it.

The other major issue relates to the narrative. From the beginning, it feels like sacrifices to coherence have been made in order to cram in more plot. Although the main through-line isn't that hard to follow, there's a sense that whole scenes are missing. Subplots are developed then dropped. One character (Anamaria Vartolomei's Kai) all-but-disappears after being introduced as a potentially significant player. It's impossible to say whether the film's choppiness is the result of editorial decisions to reduce the running time to a still-lengthy 137 minutes or whether the script needed at least one more revision before going in front of the cameras. The reasons aren't necessarily relevant; it's the result that counts.

Mickey 17 has a 30-minute prologue that gets us up to speed on the necessary background. With a voiceover narration courtesy of main character Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), we learn how Mickey, a failed businessman with a debt coming due to a loanshark, and his friend Timo (Steven Yeun), end up on a space expedition to colonize the ice world of Nilfheim. Mickey has signed on as an Expendable - someone who willingly allows his body to be repeatedly cloned so he can undertake dangerous missions. When he dies, sometimes painfully, another version of him (with memories intact) is "reprinted." The prologue details the mistreatments endured by earlier Mickeys, bringing us up to date. The current Mickey, Mickey 17, appears ready to meet his fate after he falls into a deep crevasse and is swarmed by Nilfheim's indigenous species, the armadillo-like "creepers." Instead of killing him, though, the creatures help him back to the surface. However, Timo reports Mickey 17 to be dead so Mickey 18 is printed. This results in the existence of "multiples," a crime punishable by the permanent extermination of the line.

The Mickeys are antagonistic toward one another but because their continued survival depends on no one recognizing there are two of them, they are forced to work together (although that agreement comes only after Mickey 18 attempts - and fails - to kill Mickey 17). The truth must especially be hidden from Kenneth Marshall, the colony's leader, and his conniving wife, Ylfa. Initially, the only one to know the truth is Nasha Barridge (Naomi Ackie), a security agent who has been the girlfriend of multiple Mickeys and now delights in the possibility of having a threesome with two of them.

A reason to see Mickey 17 - perhaps the only reason - is for the performance of Robert Pattinson, who has a lot of fun creating and Jekyll and Hyde personalities of the two primary Mickeys. His approach is reminiscent of the one taken by Willam Shatner all the way back in 1966 with an episode of Star Trek called "The Enemy Within." In that one, a transporter accident splits the captain into two distinct people: a "good" Kirk and a "bad" Kirk, and Shatner uses his inimitable style to emphasize the likenesses and differences. Pattison's approach here is similar (and almost as overt).

Although Mickey 17 is paradoxically overlong yet underdone, there are elements that work well and offer a peek at the missed potential of the project. The story takes an unconventional approach to the concept of cloning and opens up existential and philosophical questions both old and new. Unfortunately, the fascinating aspects of Mickey 17's DNA are shunted into the background to make way for the bombastic Marshall and a less-than-compelling story about a potential showdown between the humans and the creepers. By making Marshall such a cartoonish figure, Bong undercuts tension and renders the film's climax inert. Overall, it's hard to see Mickey 17 as anything but a disappointment.

© 2025 James Berardinelli

Synopsis

From the Academy Award-winning writer/director of “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho, comes his next groundbreaking cinematic experience, “Mickey 17.” The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living.

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