Movie Review: ‘Mickey 17’

Plot: In the near future, Mickey Barnes’ (Robert Pattinson) life is going nowhere. After a failed business venture financially ruins him, Mickey flees Earth – and a psychotic loan shark – to colonize the planet Nilflheim. Unfortunately, with no marketable skills, Mickey signs up to be an Expendable, a disposable employee forced to handle the most lethal jobs imaginable. Every time Mickey “dies,” his clone and memories are reprinted out using banned technology. Amidst a sea of bozos, Mickey’s only light is his girlfriend, security agent Nasha (Naomi Ackie). During a mission to capture a specimen of Niflheim’s indigenous dominant lifeform (dubbed Creepers), Mickey falls into an ice fissure and is left for dead. With the help of several Creepers Mickey somehow survives and returns to base, only to find that Mickey 18 has already been printed out. With “Multiples” strictly forbidden, the Mickeys must find a way to avoid egomaniacal colony leader Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his equally crazy wife Ylfa (Toni Collette) and save the colony from an imminent Creeper attack.

Review: I’ve been a Bong Joon-ho fan ever since I caught his first English language film, Snowpiercer, several years ago. His groundbreaking 2019 work Parasite was a revelation and took the awards season that year by storm. Additionally, my favorite non-2024 release that I watched last year was Joon-ho’s magnificent crime thriller Memories of Murder. To say I was hyped for Mickey 17, his first flick in almost six years, is a severe understatement. I mean a dark comedy science fiction film starring Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, and Toni Collette, based on one of the top science fiction novels of the last five years (incidentally written by a gentleman from my hometown), and directed by one of the most acclaimed directors living today? It was a foregone conclusion I would be catching this one in theaters. It should have been a slam dunk.

SHOULD.

It brings me no pleasure to report that Mickey 17 is a massive misfire for Bong Joon-ho. Tonally chaotic, lacking in verisimilitude, ham fisted in its social commentary, overly long, and often times boring, I’m genuinely shocked at how much I disliked this film. While I wholeheartedly believe that Bong Joon-ho will go on to make more acclaimed and successful films, film historians may one day consider Mickey 17 to be Joon-ho’s equivalent of Scorsese’s New York, New York or Spielberg’s 1941. In other words, the rare poor film in an otherwise strong filmography.

Before I delve into the many issues I had with Mickey 17, I believe it’s important to elucidate on the two highlights of the movie. Firstly, Mickey 17 is a stunningly beautiful film with excellent visual effects and pristine cinematography from Oscar nominated DP Darius Khondji. Space travel, the planet Nilflheim, and the Creepers feel incredibly realistic and the sound design was top notch. Secondly, Robert Pattinson is revelatory as Mickey 17 and 18. Each has a distinctive personality with 18 much more assertive and 17 a loveable and empathetic goof. Pattinson does a great job conveying Mickey as an everyman “Joe the Plumber” type. He’s a working class cog in the capitalism wheel subject to the whims and power dynamics of the wealthy, elite, and powerful. Without question, Mickey is relatable and you can’t help but like him despite some massive flaws. After performances in The Batman, Good Time, The King, Tenet, and The Lost City of Z if you still think of Pattinson as the “sparkly Twilight vampire” I can’t help you.

Unfortunately, Pattinson’s performance and Mickey 17‘s stunning visuals can’t make up for the myriad other problems in the film. The most glaring problem is Mickey 17‘s tone. Chaotic doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s damn near bipolar. For example, the minor character of Kai (Anamaria Vartolomei) in one scene pours out her heart to Mickey about the loss of her girlfriend in an accident and then in the next scene is trying to make a deal with Nasha to split the Mickeys equally as sexual partners. The film’s tonal chaos is played out in the character of Nasha as well. One moment she’s high as the moon looking forward to a weird threesome with both Mickeys and the next she’s plotting the takedown of Marshall and his cronies. It’s hard to wrap my head around a film that cynically depicts the plight of the working class and then undercuts its message with scenes (including a weird one with a dude dressed in a bird costume) that are equally parts Three Stooges and Looney Tunes. This movie has no idea what it wants to be. Dark absurdist comedy? Biting social commentary picture? Sci-fi romance? Alien mystery? All of them? Unfortunately, the fault lies at the feet of writer/director Bong Joon-Ho.

Additionally, Bong Joon-ho has never been one to shy away from social commentary. Indeed Memories of Murder, Snowpiercer, and Parasite possess strong social themes while simultaneously being wildly entertaining. However, Mickey 17 is about as subtle as a meat cleaver to the frontal lobe. It’s clearly a commentary on how many of our leaders are inept unintelligent narcissists, concerned only with maintaining money and power, while the working class are continually fucked over. We are, just like Mickey, Expendables. These concepts have become so axiomatic at this point that social commentary isn’t even necessary. Certainly, not in this manner. Although Warner Bros states that Ruffalo’s character isn’t supposed to represent any current politician, I’m here to tell you that’s nonsense. Kenneth Marshall is clearly a stand-in for Donald Trump and all of his acolytes wear red hats. I haven’t seen social commentary be this ham fisted and obvious since Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up.

While I highlighted Pattinson’s brilliant performance earlier, aside from Naomi Ackie’s frenetic and endearing Nasha, the rest of the acting performances are sadly lacking. Everyone else feels like caricatures rather than fully fleshed out characters, whether it be a scientist or a janitor. You need look no further than Mark Ruffalo’s over-the-top Trumpian role as Kenneth Marshall. It’s a half-baked SNL Trump imitation that had me seriously questioning whether or not Ruffalo (multiple Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo) is actually a good actor. That’s how bad his performance was. He’s nearly outdone by Toni Colette’s take as Ylfa who, besides being a psychopath that likes to make sauces out of Creeper tails, possesses zero depth. A majority of the scenes that were either nonsensical or went on far too long involved this duo. I never thought I’d be checking my watch during a Bong Joon-ho film but here we are.

SPOILER ALERT However, my most egregious criticism about Mickey 17 is it’s complete and utter lack of verisimilitude. For some reason the film is set in 2054 which immediately took me out of the movie. The chances of human beings developing not only eternal life cloning technology and interstellar travel in just three decades, when America can’t even straighten out our health care system and new trips to the moon aren’t expected until next year at the earliest, strains credulity. Furthermore, there’s never any explanation given as to why Mickey 18 is so vastly different than the previous incarnations of Mickey. We are just expected to accept it on face value. There’s also a ridiculous subplot where the gangster loan shark that Mickey ran away from sends a person on the colonization ship just to extract revenge. Absurd. And for some inane, inexplicable reason, the colony decides to blow up the cloning technology at the end of the film as a symbol of liberation. Why the Hell would you do that when you could use it to print out spare organs or other vital medical devices? I just did not buy what Mickey 17 was selling.

At the end of the day Mickey 17 proves to be a nonsensical, chaotic, and overstuffed piece of science fiction social commentary that’s not worth the price of admission. Like Mickey Barnes himself, this movie is simply expendable.

My rating system:

1 God Awful Blind Yourself With Acid Bad

2 Straight Garbage

3 Bad

4 Sub Par

5 Average

6 Ok

7 Good

8 Great

9 Excellent

10 A Must See

Masterpiece

Mickey 17: 4/10