OUT NOW: Mickey 17 (Bong Joon Ho, 2025)

When his earth-side problems put his life in danger, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) finds an escape by enlisting as an 'expendable' on an off-world colony.

This job entails him being cloned over and over again - every time Mickey fails in his job, or takes part in a fatal experiment, or makes a mistake, he finds himself resurrected.

When Mickey's 17th version is left for dead among the native inhabitants of the alien planet, the loop of his existence is interrupted - and our hero has chance to rediscover his own sense of self-worth.

If he can live long enough...

Mickey 17 is an enjoyable movie.

It has problems. 

It is easily the sloppiest Bong Joon Ho movie I have seen.

The third act features some ham-fisted flashbacks to justify a character revelation that is not much of a revelation. And some of the performances veer into the wrong side of caricature.

But there is a lot to like here.

For one thing, it is nice to see a mainstream, big-budget movie featuring sex.

Movies have become perversely disinterested in any kind of heat. There is nothing particularly groundbreaking about what we see in the movie, but it is a testament to how barren the Hollywood landscape is that the pedestrian coupling we see here is surprising.

There is one scene where it feels like the film is going to push boundaries in its portrayal of the central relationship - but it veers away. 

The film constantly feels like it is about to build on its ideas, but it feels a tad muted in places.

The strongest element of the film is the the portrayal of the natives, derisively labeled 'creepers'.

Resembling hairy pill bugs, they are designed to appear both cute and un-humanlike. 

The reveal that the native inhabitants have more empathy than the human colonists is given more weight by the fact that the film does not attempt to anthropomorphise or 'humanise' this species.

They are not given any familiar features - they are alien.

The film's point is not subtle, but in the current climate, it is positively radical: just because these creatures may offend our aesthetics for feeling empathy, they are deserving of it.

 

Some of the other satire feels too broad: the conman politician/religious leader, the importance of optics.

What does not help is that the locus of this satire, Mark Ruffalo, feels miscast, at sea as the clueless cult leader.

These points are hit with a hammer and lack a sense of specificity.

The use of different Mickeys to reflect the different versions of the self feels like an untested catalyst - more potential than actualised in the film.

The rest of the cast are solid.

Pattinson is having a good time as the diametrically opposed Mickey's.

The eternally underrated Steven Yuen is hilariously self-involved as Mickey’s best friend/antagonist.

As all the Mickey's love interest, Naomi Ackie is good but her role feels a little underwritten.

The attempt at romance feels short-changed.

The flashbacks showing Nasha caring for Mikey’s previous selves feel unnecessary. I got their relationship form the scenes we had - the flashbacks feel like they are filling in inferences the movie already made. Mikey’s revelation does not carry the weight the film intends. 

A intermittently fun movie, but one hopes Bong Joon Ho uses it as a springboard to come back with a more unique and personal project.

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