Mickey 17 Review: Distinctly Bong, Through and Through
Ken Jones, OnScreen Blog Chief Film Critic
After cleaning up the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Foreign Film with 2019’s Parasite, everyone was curious to see Bong Joon Ho’s next project. His follow-up is Mickey 17, a dystopian sci-fi story about space exploration and worker exploitation.
Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) enlists in a private corporation’s plan to colonize the distant planet Niflheim. Poor and desperate to escape his perilous circumstances on Earth, Mickey volunteers to be an Expendable, someone who agrees to become a clone and have their consciousness copied so they can be used over and over again as lab rats and on dangerous missions.
On the journey to Niflheim, in addition to dying and returning 17 times, Mickey develops a relationship with fellow crewmate Nasha (Naomi Ackie). He’s also accompanied by his manipulative best friend, Timo (Steven Yeun). The ship they are on is owned and operated by Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a rich, failed politician on Earth intent on creating a civilization in his own image with his manipulative wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette), scheming in his ear.
The arrival on snowy Niflheim leads Mickey to an encounter with the indigenous creatures of the planet, dubbed “creepers” by Marshall, hairy animals that look worse than they appear. After his encounter with the creepers, a presumed dead Mickey 17 soon finds himself face to face with his replacement, Mickey 18, which is a problem as “multiples” are illegal.
Mickey 17 brings the usual darkly comedic sensibilities of a Bong Joon Ho film. Mickey’s predicament is absurd, volunteering for a job that most people would not volunteer for. The explanation of human cloning, and how multiples came to be, and what led to their being banned on Earth is quite reminiscent of the “ghost” flashback in Parasite. I’ve always been a fan of dark humor, and while this might not be the funniest of dark comedies, there are plenty that made me chuckle and a few absurdities that really made me laugh.
Pattinson’s performance as Mickey is a showcase that most actors would dream of, getting to play riffs on the same character. Mickey 18 is slightly different in disposition from Mickey 17, perhaps a bit more murder-happy but, at the very least, more amoral. We don’t become familiar with most of the Mickey variants, but Mickey 17 mentions that Nasha told him every Mickey was a little different; one was more emotionally needy and clingy, but she loved them all. Pattinson gives Mickey 17 and 18 enough variation to make them distinct characters.
Bong has never been one to shy away from sociopolitical themes, and they are quite overt here. Mickey’s job is to be an expendable worker; need I say more? Hard to think of something more exploitative than to have to die over and over again for your job. There is definitely some dark humor to be mined from the various ways Mickey dies, but also the experimentation he is subjected to, but there is also some sympathy and pathos that pays off in the long run, too, particularly when it comes to Mickey and Nasha.
Ruffalo gives a very big performance as Marshall, a very thinly veiled Trump figure. I was unable to shake the feeling that this movie was made with the 2024 presidential election in mind but also made with a different outcome of that election in mind, too. Marshall is a dimwit who is quick to take credit for success even when things are clearly failing, has no patience for those beneath him, and refuses to be told he is wrong, especially when it comes to the Creepers, which are unique creatures, and a textbook case of having a villain be able to judge “others” by their appearance rather than their behavior.
Bong Joon Ho is a director who has never been afraid to go heavy on sociopolitical commentary in his films (The Host, Snowpiercer, Okja, Parasite), and this film is no exception. However, it’s a little too on the nose sometimes, and I could have used a bit more subtlety overall.
While there is some heavy political commentary on the wealthy manipulating and exploiting the poor for their own selfish gains, the director still manages to use Pattinson’s Mickey (and the Creepers) to promote the value and worth of all living beings, and in the weird way that only Bong Joon Ho could.
Bong Joon Ho’s follow-up to one of the best films of the 21st century would probably never live up to the impossibly high bar that Parasite set. It may not be his best film or even his second-best film, but Mickey 17 is still a Bong Joon Ho film through and through, and it fits quite comfortably into his distinct filmography.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars