Mickey 17 Review

Bong Joon-Ho's Mickey 17 is a sci-fi satire that'll leave you scratching your head. Robert Pattinson stars as Mickey Barnes, an "expendable" worker on a spaceship headed to a faraway snowy planet called Nifelheim. Every time Mickey dies in the service of a science experiment - whether it's radiation poisoning, a deadly virus, or even freezing to death - his body is tossed down an incinerator, and a brand-new Mickey is 3D-printed, complete with his memories. But even after 16 deaths, dying doesn't gets easier.

That this is unfolding not centuries later but in the year 2054 is Bong Joon-Ho's way of poking fun at current affairs. The ship's commander, Kenneth Marshall, is more than a little familiar. With his shiny teeth, pouty lips, and love for over-the-top speeches, he's a not-so-subtle nod to a certain real-life politician. A camera crew follows him and his wife, played by Toni Collette, while a gaggle of groveling scientists do his bidding. Kenneth is the definition of a demagogue.

By the time we meet Mickey #17, he's fed up with the gig but continues meekly. He is insecure and full of self-pity, and his only ray of hope in the spaceship is his girlfriend Nasha (Naomi Ackie). But when Mickey accidentally gets reprinted causing there to be multiples of him, it sets off a scramble to eliminate all versions.

Like Parasite, Bong Joon-Ho's Mickey 17 is packed with social commentary - none of it subtle. Its characters serve as mouthpieces for its ideas - Mickey represents the ordinary worker that the system chews up and spits out. Someone who is literally dying in his job. Commander Marshall is the face of authoritarianism, and his wife an oblivious elite snob who one time stops Marshall from shooting a man for fear of the blood staining her 'Persian Tabriz' carpet.

As the film wryly but indiscriminately nibbles through a buffet of themes, it's the odd moments of humour that sustain your interest. Toni Collette is devilishly good as Marshall's wife, channeling a Marie Antoinette-esque obsession with making the perfect steak sauce - even as humanity's future hangs in the balance. Steven Yuen is very funny as Mickey's slimy friend Timo. Less appealing is Mark Ruffalo's eerie imitation of Trump, which comes off a little too on-the-nose.

From the get-go, though, Robert Pattinson makes an indelible impression as Mickey, with a cartoonish voice that sounds like he has been inhaling Helium. He plays a hunched-over, pitiable Mickey 17, accidentally reprinted as a slightly more arrogant Mickey 18. Pattinson nails the performance - disarmingly funny yet embodying a sad and empathetic figure who somehow also attracts a Type A woman like Nasha. Their overactive sex life is another of those delightful little details that Bong Joon-Ho dreams up.

In the vein of Don't Look Up (2021) - a farcical cautionary tale about the politicization of everything - Mickey 17 reflects the nature of our late-capitalist society. The corruption of science is embodied by the servile lab coats clinging to Commander Marshall's words. Our most hawkish impulses surface through Marshall's plot to colonize Nifelheim and subjugate its native inhabitants - giant, tick-like creatures he dismissively calls "Creepers". All the while, the little guy, the ordinary man, is crushed under the weight of his own narrative. Mickey, even on the worst of days, blames himself and not the messed-up Expendable system for his fate. He wonders if all his suffering is punishment for the one time as a kid that he dissected a frog.

As the film approaches its climax, characters become more exaggerated, fully inhabiting their quirks. However, from a narrative standpoint, they deliver a series of clichés. Had the film's ideas cohered more effectively, surprised us, and avoided such heavy-handedness, Mickey 17 might have realized its full potential.