Mickey 17

Director: Bong Joon Ho

2025

15 July 2025

See

Mickey (Robert Pattinson) volunteers to be an off planet expendable worker, cloned and reprinted after each occupational hazard induced death until iteration 17 where we pick up the story in medias res. 

Think

Why would someone do the kind of lowly labour where your colleagues constantly ask, “What does it feel like to die?” First asked by Timo (Steven Yeun) before a giant alien armadillo with centipede legs is about to devour Mickey. Then we see the two of them in trouble on Earth, after their macaroon business goes bust, and they flee for frying pan for the fire of the space colony. En route Mickey falls in love with Nasha (Naomi Ackie) a strong willed security officer. She’s a fierce fighter in keeping the peace onboard dining hall brawls that look like scenes from prison movies, and she’s sharp tongued too when confronting the authorities with a monologue about “we’re the aliens”. For some reason she’s into Mickey, who Pattinson plays with a haplessness and Cockamamie voice. The trio (or quartet) cook up a half baked scheme to hide the abhorrent “multiples” when 17 is actually saved by the giant bug Queen and 18 is printed. He comes out a gruffer version, which allows Pattinson to play with the performance another way.

Feel

I’m more interested to see what he does with High Life, Claire Denis’s sci-fi film. His choices post Twilight have been smart, just like co-star Kristen Stewart. The problem with this absurd movie is it’s not very funny. Mickey isn’t as endearing as Bill Murray in Groundhog Day improving with each iteration. The mission leaders and tyrants Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and Ylfa (Toni Colette) are hamfisted. Not much in this spectacle is weighty, although Kai Katz (Anamaria Vartolomei) as another security guard crushing on Mickey introduces ideas of social hierarchy that layer the story a little more, but not enough to be appetising. It may be residual from her performance in Happening. Bong Joon Ho may have used up his good will post Parasite and Snowpiercer. This is more Okja and less Mother. I prefer his Korean language films to his American blockbusters. The messages are more meaningful.