South Korean auteur Bong Joon Ho follows up his 2019 Oscar winner Parasite with this adaptation of Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey 7.
Starring Robert Pattinson in dual roles, the story is set in the near future and follows the downtrodden Mickey Barnes who hastily signs himself up to be an ‘expendable’ crew member onboard a colony starship bound for the ice planet Niflheim.
Unfortunately, Mickey didn’t read the small print and is subsequently selected for the most dangerous and life-threatening tasks. The catch being, when he dies, his body is simply reprinted with his memories intact, ready to go again.
When the 18th version of Mickey is prematurely created before number 17 has officially been confirmed dead, No. 17 has to confront the pitfalls of having a duplicate of himself onboard the ship.
The solid supporting cast includes a hilarious turn by Mark Ruffalo, doing a very deliberate Donald Trump impression as Kenneth Marshall, a right-wing loon and the mission leader, looking to create his own empire in the stars, while Toni Collette is unnervingly callous as his wife Ylfa.
Steven Yeun is Mickey’s horrible ‘best’ friend who he enlists alongside, while Naomi Ackie is foul-mouthed security agent Nasha, with whom Mickey forms a romantic bond.
With heightened performances throughout, the film has a comedic tone and is deliberately OTT. While this may put off some viewers looking for serious Sci-Fi, the film is a ton of fun for those willing to embrace the outlandish elements.
Director Bong’s most similar film is 2017’s Netflix release Okja, a film which featured an oversized hippo/pig hybrid. The CG creatures in Mickey 17 are equally well realised and provide the films moral core. An indigenous species to Niflheim, cruelly christened ‘Creepers’ by Marshall, the creatures are vilified, but as Nasha eloquently points out, the humans are the actual Alien invaders in this case.
Since breaking out in the Twilight films, Pattinson has been adept at selecting interesting roles and does so again. His two versions of Mickey are so brilliantly different, 17 is a coy and clumsy misfit, while 18 is a confident rebel, there’s really no need for their crudely scrawled name badges.
A bubbling soup of disparate themes, including ecology, colonialism, and the disposable nature of life, Mickey 17 is director Bong in gleefully silly form.
It’s weird, romantic and more than a tad baggy, but original sci-fi, jam-packed with so many big ideas, doesn’t come along very often, so when it does it’s cause for celebration.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Paul Steward
28/03/25
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