MICKEY 17 (2025)
Starring Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo, Holliday Grainger, Anamaria Vartolomei, Thomas Turgoose, Angus Imrie, Cameron Britton, Patsy Ferran, Daniel Henshall, Steve Park, Tim Key, Lloyd Hutchinson, Samuel Blenkin, Ian Hanmore, Sabet Choudhury, Rose Shalloo, Bronwyn James, Milo James and Daniel Henshall.
Screenplay by Bong Joon Ho.
Directed by Bong Joon Ho.
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. 137 minutes. Rated R.
It has taken a long time for Korean director Bong Joon Ho to follow up his surprise Best Picture Oscar winning film Parasite, which originally came out in 2019. That film was certainly exquisitely made, unique and thought-provoking – although I would certainly debate whether it was the best movie of the year.
With Mickey 17, the filmmaker is working on his third English-language film with an international cast (he had also made the acclaimed Snowpiercer in 2013 and Okja in 2017). And in many ways, Mickey 17 is also exquisitely made, unique and thought-provoking.
Yet, I would be shocked if it will even be in the discussion for Best Picture.
Despite Mickey 17’s many attributes – and overall I did like the film more than I may have expected – this film just has too many issues to give an unqualified recommendation. (And, in fact, I can’t even give the much better Parasite an unqualified recommendation.)
For, while Mickey 17 has a fascinating premise, honestly it is much more heavy-handed and obvious (often even cartoonish) in its themes and sense of good and evil. You can tell that Bong Joon Ho is trying to say something important with the story, you’re just not so sure that he really succeeds in that goal. The moral seems pretty evident and often heavy-handed. (Even with its faults, Parasite definitely succeeded in getting its point across succinctly.)
Robert Pattinson plays Mickey Barnes, a future restaurateur who has fallen afoul of a loan shark from the mob. In order to escape a crushing debt which will undoubtedly lead to him and his best friend and partner getting whacked, they decide to leave the Earth and find refuge on a spaceship which is being used by a disgraced former politician (Mark Ruffalo) to conquer a distant planet.
Of course, Mickey was so desperate to leave that he signed up to be an “expendable” without reading the fine print. Expendables essentially agree to test the most dangerous drugs and situations, and when they are inevitably killed (multiple times) they are just replaced by a cloned version of their original selves in an ongoing loop.
It’s an odd concept, but one that is full of pathos, particularly when Mickey finally finds true love in one of the other ship workers (Naomi Ackie). Then things deteriorate when the seventeenth version of Mickey is left for dead on the new planet, where he is saved by members the dangerous-looking but actually rather friendly alien race which lives on the planet.
However, the humans thought Mickey was dead and remade him, which leaves two Mickeys on the loose, where both are targeted for termination, and they get involved in the resistance against the leaders of the mission.
Mark Ruffalo’s performance – which is essentially a broad imitation of Donald Trump with a bit of Elon Musk mixed in – may have been well done, but it kind of made me feel queasy throughout. I mean the problem of Trump fatigue is not necessarily the actor and the director’s fault – DJT was out of office when the film was being made – but it still makes the movie harder to watch and enjoy. Add on the normally reliable Toni Collette’s way-over-the-top villainess wife character and the bad guys are so obvious, so dimwitted, so detestable, that in a strange way it diminishes the power of the story. Anyone who follows these two pretty much deserves whatever they get.
Still, all things being equal, I enjoyed more of Mickey 17 than I was disappointed in.
Pattinson’s somewhat goofy take on his character actually works surprisingly well, as do performances by Ackie and French actress Anamaria Vartolomei as the women who are attracted to the doomed worker. And the alien creatures, while kind of strange looking, actually turn out to be intriguing characters.
Don’t expect Bong Joon Ho’s latest to clean up at Oscar time next year, but it still has enough fun and intriguing moments to make it worth watching.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: March 6, 2025.
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