With his latest release, the absurdist Science-Fiction tale Mickey 17, Bong Joon Ho has crafted a provocative and socially relevant human drama/political satire that has a lot to say regarding cruelty, empathy, death, and the current state of the world. The filmmaker takes a pragmatic approach in raising important questions about a society and its leaders and has some strong messages for his audience, but allows no room for nuance. Love, politics, and revolution combine in a visually intriguing, well-acted, and sometimes moving work, but one that loses its way in its final act. 

Since his feature length debut, 2000’s wonderfully original Barking Dogs Never Bite, Bong Joon Ho has amassed a unique and respected body of work. From police procedural (2003’s Memories of Murder) to creature feature (2006’s The Host), from familial thriller (2009’s The Mother) to post-apocalyptic sci-fi (2013’s Snowpiercer), Ho traverses genres with skill and success. His talents finally earned him an Oscar for Best Director of 2019’s family drama-thriller, Parasite, which also took home statues for Best International Feature, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture. This time out, Bong blends many of the themes he likes to explore, resulting in a thought-provoking dystopian romp that is effective and frustrating in equal measure. 

Bong sidesteps the cinematic landmines of simplistic allegory for a good deal of the film’s run time, setting his pointed sociological sites with a sharp focus. Mickey 17 exists as a cinematic collage of strong metaphors for human rights, capitalist mayhem, and the dangers of uninformed blind faith in our leaders.  Adapting his screenplay from Edward Ashton’s novel, Mickey 7, Bong Joon Ho explores both the ethical and philosophical ramifications of a future where individuality is no longer recognized. Such a subject hits harder in broken America of 2025. 

Robert Pattinson is Mickey Barnes, a lonely man who signs up to be an “expendable” (a clone whose entire being is uploaded to a new body every time the current body dies). Mickey is just another worker bee on a spaceship run by the lunatic failed politician, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo). Driven by a mad desire for absolute power and a pathetic need to please his wife (Toni Collette), Marshall has set out to space to create his own colony titled, “Niflheim”. This is to be a genetically pure (White only) colony of Marshall sycophants and disciples who will live under his rule on a distant ice planet populated by creatures dubbed “creepers”, which are a cross between wooly mammoths, the sandworms from Dune, and Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street.

As an expendable, Mickey is subjected to gruesome experiments and is the one to go on the dangerous recon missions. Every assignment is a death sentence, but Mickey is reprinted time and again, with each new copy receiving a new number. His memories are continually reloaded, so Mickey is still Mickey. Human as ever, he continues on with the awkwardness of life and the painful memory of his mother’s death. His is a life of indignities. 

While on a mission to observe the creepers, Mickey 17 is presumed dead by his supposed friend Timo (Steven Yeun), a man whose self-serving schemes led Mickey on his current path. Another copy is made (Mickey 18) that will eventually come face to face with his former incarnation. Aggressive and pompous, Mickey 18 is the polar opposite of his predecessor, who is too eager to please or stand up for himself. Pattinson is completely in tune with the strange vibes of the two Mickeys and the world that surrounds them, crafting two uniquely different portraits of (essentially) the same man. For Mickey 17, the actor uses a diminished posture and near-constant look of confusion to portray this incarnation’s awkward existence in a world he no longer wishes to be a part of and makes good use of a Steve Buscemi-like voice to complete the character’s aloofness. For Mickey 18, Pattinson stands taller and walks with a more assured posture, delivering his lines with a confident tone and capturing the swagger and bold aura of the “stronger” Mickey. Giving two excellent performances in one film strengthens the proof that Robert Pattinson continues to be one of our most interesting and adventurous actors.

Mickey 17’s security officer girlfriend Nasha (a wonderful Naomi Ackie) is completely devoted to their relationship, but falls under the sexual spell of the more adventurous 18. For a time, Nasha is the moral center of the story. Her kindness draws her to Mickey 17 and she is the only one who sees him as a person rather than a dispensable tool. Such a caring and loyal soul helps him keep a hold on his humanity. When she is drawn to Mickey 18, her formally unshakeable moral center gives way to seduction; a jolting reminder of how humanity is fallible.

Mark Ruffalo’s Marshall channels his Oscar-nominated work from the Yorgos Lanthimos film, Poor Things. The actor’s work is a grab bag of fascist lunacy and repellent indignity that is as unnerving as it is comical. For quite a while, Ruffalo keeps his performance from going off the rails, until the final act where he blasts into the over-the-top stratosphere and his maniacal ramblings become tiresome. Toni Collette’s work is the yin to Ruffalo’s yang. A more controlled style, Colette presents a nasty woman who only cares for her own pursuits and uses her easily-manipulated husband to achieve them. The role isn’t well-defined and, amongst all of the madness, the actress fails to leave a lasting impression. It is a shame to see a performer of Collette’s stature become a “seat-filler” in a role that anyone could play. 

The director stated that Ruffalo’s character was not based on anyone. While this may be true, Marshall’s speeches and the red hats worn by his followers say something different. The reality reflected in such a self-absorbed dictator gives the film a sharper edge and helps to execute the screenplay’s powerful warnings. While there is a lot going on, and it may not always work, the director leaves viewers with something thought-provoking.

Bong Joon Ho gets good mileage out of the relevant story, but eventually hurts the intended impact with overloaded subplots and unnecessary characters. Anamaria Vartolomei’s Kai Katz could have found an intriguing arc, as she is a woman who signed up for the mission who discovers she was only accepted to help birth Marshall’s new “pure” race of people. The script does nothing with the character beyond a needless and half-assed “romantic rival” plot for Mickey 17’s affections. The screenplay could completely remove Kai Katz and it wouldn’t affect the narrative.

Bong’s film is successful in its critique of how the disenfranchised are used by those in power, but the filmmaker doesn’t go deep enough, too-often hiding behind the absurd when the comedy could have been more pointed. Not long after the halfway mark, Bong Joon Ho seems to be at odds with the changing attitudes of his screenplay. There is a strong inconsistency that makes its way into the filmmaking as the director finds himself on an uneven divide between heavy-handed ethics and outrageous buffoonery. Eventually, the wild flights of zaniness begin to sully the film’s strong moral stance. 

This is not to say one should disregard this film as a one-off. There are too many good moments and Bong Joon Ho is one of the few modern filmmakers who consistently challenges his audience with weighty subjects designed in cinematically intriguing and sometimes artful ways. Darius Khondji’s cinematography finds beauty in the ugliness of the gloomy dystopia while Fiona Crombie’s production design completes the Orwellian look with the ship’s harsh metals, long corridors, and industrial aura. Bong uses their great work to enhance the bleakness of Mickey 17’s world, making Khondji and Crombie’s contributions intricate characters of their own. 

Some of cinemas’ greatest filmmakers have used the sci-fi genre to tell important stories of mankind in a state of survival amongst political and social upheaval. Sometimes it works (François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis) and sometimes it fails (Robert Altman’s Quartet). Mickey 17 falls somewhere in between. The excellent first hour and 45 minutes is beaming with Bong Joon Ho’s skill at steering abruptly changing tonal shifts to something potent and moving. Humanity’s destructive streak and inherent cruelty towards man, beast, and the environment are explored through a sympathetic lens. It is in the film’s final explosion of madcap anarchy where the themes become buried. Bong finishes his picture with a pummeling attack on the senses that goes far beyond over-the-top. There is a sensory overload of yelling, convoluted editing, and too much CGI. It is common for a film to go off the rails in its final act. For a filmmaker such as Bong Joon Ho, it is unthinkable that he could lose control in such a dizzying manner. 

While Mickey 17 earns a certain forgiveness for its well-executed first half and the excellent work from Robert Pattinson, it becomes a herculean task to find a path to a fully-positive recommendation. It is admirable for a filmmaker who continues to take risks and the subject matter opens up a treasure chest of conversations about humanity’s future. This is a film that should be seen in a theater. In a Hollywood where movie screens are filled with images with no substance, here is a film that takes on the weighty questions of man’s inhumanity towards man and so much more. As the finale crumbles, it becomes frustrating how the great Bong Joon Ho let it all slip away. 

Still, for such a talented filmmaker, the risk may be the reward. 

Mickey 17

Written and Directed by Bong Joon Ho (Based on the book, Mickey 7, by Edward Ashton)

Starring Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Steven Yeun, Anamaria Vartolomei

R, 139 Minutes, Warner Brothers, Plan B