Mickey 17

Bong Joon-ho is back, and this time he has taken his characteristic mix of genres and social criticism to the outer reaches of space. Mickey 17 is an ambitious, sometimes infuriating, but ultimately fascinating addition to his filmography, which, depending on your point of view, either consolidates his place among today's most daring filmmakers or reveals the flaws in his ever-increasing ambition. If Parasite was a scathing indictment of class warfare wrapped in the trappings of a black comedy, and Snowpiercer a dystopian and claustrophobic action thriller that concealed a Marxist fable, then Mickey 17 is Bong Joon-ho's most absurd and satirical take on capitalist exploitation to date.

The story, freely adapted from the novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, follows Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), a expendable on a mission to colonize the ice-covered world of Niflheim. The job title could not be more literal: Mickey is there to die. Whether it's testing for toxins in the air, contracting alien viruses or being sent into deadly situations, his fate is to perish again and again, only to be reprinted in a new body with his memories intact. It's capitalism at its peak: a worker whose sole function is to be eliminated and replaced at will. Bong Joon-ho has long been interested in systems that dehumanize their participants, and Mickey 17 builds on this theme with a premise that seems to be the logical continuation of class struggle in Snowpiercer. If Curtis (Chris Evans) fought to overthrow a system that used the poor as human cogs, Mickey is the cog, worn out and replaced on an industrial scale.

Robert Pattinson, an actor whose career choices have been nothing short of fascinating since Twilight, is perfectly cast in the role. As Mickey 17, he is a clumsy, self-deprecating everyman, a man who didn't read the fine print before signing away his body (and soul) for a job that amounts to a constant death. But as Mickey 18, the unintended double created when 17 refuses to die, he is quite different. While 17 is unhappy, 18 is dangerous, with both versions of Mickey embodying the duality of human survival: submission versus rebellion, resignation versus resistance. There is an ironic slapstick energy to their interactions, with Bong Joon-ho fully embracing the inherent comedy of two versions of the same man forced to navigate their existential crisis together. It's almost as if Multiplicity had been mashed up with Blade Runner and directed by a mad satirist.

No Bong Joon-ho movie would be complete without a larger-than-life villain, and here we have Mark Ruffalo as Kenneth Marshall, the would-be dictator at the head of the Niflheim colonization mission. If Wilford in The Snowpiercer was an enigmatic, god-like figure hidden at the front of the train, Marshall is an orange-skinned, self-aggrandizing braggart who flaunts his villainy. He is a failed politician, expelled from Earth after losing two elections, who now dreams of creating a pure white world of superior people. If this sounds like a thinly veiled satire of Donald Trump, that's exactly what it is. Mark Ruffalo plays him with a mixture of comedy and genuine menace, walking a tightrope between the absurd and the terrifying. He is flanked by his equally ridiculous wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette, perfect), whose main concern seems to be developing exotic sauces while casually advocating genocide. It's classic Bong Joon-ho as we like it: grotesque elites indulging in excess while justifying the suffering of others in the name of “progress”.

But while Mickey 17 excels in world-building and character-driven humor, its narrative can feel strangely disjointed. The first two acts are an excellent mix of absurdist comedy, existential dread, and sci-fi intrigue. Bong Joon-ho's vision of life on the colony is richly detailed, a bureaucratic nightmare where Mickey's suffering is met with casual indifference - after all, he's just another expendable. But as the movie kicks into high gear in its third act, the biting satire begins to soften, giving way to a more conventional sci-fi action climax that seems at odds with what has come before. The introduction of the Creepers, the planet's native insectoid creatures, gives Mickey 17 the opportunity to explore the themes of colonization and environmentalism - echoing Okja's anti-corporatist stance on animal exploitation - but this thread never quite reaches the weight it should have. By the end of the movie, it's hard not to feel that some of its most ambitious ideas have been lost in the shuffle.

Mickey 17 is an extremely entertaining movie. It's visually striking, with Bong Joon-ho and cinematographer Darius Khondji creating a world that is both tactile and supernatural. The production design is an inspired mix of grimy, utilitarian spaceship interiors and the garish excess of the ruling class - Marshall's quarters resemble Mar-a-Lago reimagined as a space station, with gilded ornamentation and grotesque opulence. And the humor, which has always been a crucial ingredient in Bong Joon-ho's work, is remarkably sharp. From Mickey's hilarious and clumsy attempts to prevent his two personalities from being discovered to Ylfa's deranged obsession with making sauce, the film's comedy is often its strongest element.

Yet one can't help but wonder if Bong Joon-ho's vision has been slightly compromised here. Unlike Parasite, which was a tight thriller with no dead time, Mickey 17 sometimes feels like a movie scaled down from something much bigger. There are allusions to subplots that never really develop - Timo, played by Steven Yeun, for example, seems sidelined despite his apparent importance in Mickey's story. Similarly, the film's more philosophical musings on identity and the nature of consciousness take a back seat to its broader political satire. One wonders if the transition from Ashton's novel to Bong's screenplay involved any difficult compromises, especially given the long delay in the film's release.

In the grand scheme of Bong Joon-ho's English-language films, Mickey 17 falls somewhere between the strengths of Snowpiercer and the irregularities of Okja. It's not as tight or hard-hitting as Parasite, but it's certainly more ambitious than a sci-fi blockbuster. And at a time when Hollywood sci-fi tends to favor franchise-building over original storytelling, it's refreshing to see a movie that's not afraid to be weird, satirical, and decidedly political.

Is Mickey 17 a masterpiece? Not quite. But is it a fascinating, funny and thematically rich addition to Bong Joon-ho's oeuvre? Absolutely. It may not be as hard-hitting as Parasite, but even when Bong Joon-ho is not at his best, he is still far superior to most filmmakers when it comes to creating bold and original cinema. And if that's not the case, it gives us two Robert Pattinsons for the price of one, an offer that even the most hardened capitalist could not resist.

Mickey 17
Written and directed by Bong Joon-ho
Based on Mickey7 by Edward Ashton
Produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Bong Joon-ho, Dooho Choi
Starring Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo
Cinematography : Darius Khondji
Edited by Yang Jin-mo
Music by Jung Jae-il
Production companies : Plan B Entertainment, Offscreen, Kate Street Picture Company
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates : February 15, 2025 (Berlinale), March 5, 2025 (France), March 7, 2025 (United States)
Running time : 137 minutes

Seen on February 16, 2025 at Pathe Palace, room 3

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