'Mickey 17' Review: Robert Pattinson Multiplies in Fractured Satire

A politically charged sci-fi film whose big ideas should be curtailed

South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho has never been one to shy away from confronting social issues, whether that’s the classism of Parasite or the mistreatment of animals in Okja. His latest, the sci-fi feature Mickey 17, might be his most pointed, sharp and overtly political film specifically looking at American politics. And Bong makes no bones about it.

From the minute you see a group of red-hatted sycophants marveling at the escapades of an overly tanned Mark Ruffalo doing a little sideways jig it’s blatantly apparent what he’s critiquing and how. Within that critique is a bevy of big, existential ideas, such as how identity is substantiated in cloning, the ethics of expendable workforce, and what the experience of death and the afterlife is. And that’s to say nothing about more absurdist concepts like, as Toni Collette’s Ylfa Marshall blithely declares, whether “sauce is the litmus test for civilization” or not.

Mickey 17, based on the novel Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton, is a movie that’s hard to classify if only because it’s trying to do so much. And this desire to touch on so many dense topics leaves the movie feeling stitched together from one big book no doubt marked “Ideas.” Just when you latch onto something you like or that’s interesting, Bong takes the down a different path before ultimately landing audiences in a movie that feels like Okja 2.

Set in the year 2054, people on Earth are eager to leave to follow failed politician Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo) as he plans to colonize the planet Niflheim. Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) isn’t a follower of Marshall’s but he, along with his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) owe a loan shark a ton of money and need to beat a hasty retreat. Mickey, unfortunately, signs up to be an “expendable,” a person who’s sole job is to do the work that’s too dangerous for others. When Mickey dies his body and mind are copied back out into a clone who does the same job, dying every time. When the latest Mickey, #17, is left for dead and doesn’t it causes a series of situations that could lead to revolution.

Each of the big themes Bong works with in the movie are clearly delineated throughout the two hour and 17 minute runtime, starting with a question Mickey gets asked a lot: what’s it like to die? This is by far Mickey 17’s most interesting element. Mickey is a man whose sole purpose is to be a human guinea pig for pain and suffering, who is routinely killed only to be brought back in a version that’s always slightly different from the last. The people that surround him aren’t necessarily asking if there’s an afterlife or even if it’s painful since, as the audience sees, every time Mickey dies is in a horrifically painful way.

It’s more the question of what goes through one’s mind in those final moments. And, as Mickey comes to realize, even his memories are copied and carried over, held in place in a literal brick. Though Mickey is only meant to die that doesn’t mean he doesn’t find meaning where he can, specifically in his beloved Nasha (Naomie Ackie), a soldier for Marshall’s army. While Mickey may have multiple versions of himself, each one not a carbon copy, Nasha is the one who understands they’re all Mickey, and they’re all hers.

Pattinson and Ackie are Mickey 17’s beating heart. Pattinson may put on a wonky accent but his hangdog expression and earnestness to go through the motions is endearing. The arrival of Mickey 18 allows him to play a different facet of the same character that’s cocky and arrogant. It would have been fun to see just a few more Mickeys out in the world to let Pattinson really shows the nuances of the same person. Naomie Ackie is thrilling as Nasha, the no-nonsense soldier. She’s dominating, powerful and sexy as hell.

They’re certainly the ones that feel closest to people in Mickey 17. The rest come off as big-mouth caricatures, particularly the film’s villains: Kenneth and Ylfa Marshall. As mentioned, the caricatures are broad and obvious. Ruffalo speaks through a puckered mouth and big false teeth as a charlatan coercing his death cult to live on scraps and colonize (terrorize?) a new world. Collette’s Ylfa feels cribbed from other Bong female villains (specifically Tilda Swinton and Allison Pill in Snowpiercer).

The satire certainly works considering current events but it all gets fairly muddled in the third act when Kenneth decides to exterminate a group of native inhabitants to the planet that look like if Okja and the worms from Dune had a baby. The movie completely pivots away from Mickey’s question of identity and into a standard “save the animals” story.

Mickey 17 has inventive ideas but gets muddled in which ones to give significant weight to, feeling like three movies in one. Pattison and Ackie are great and the satire is sharp.