Bong Joon Ho’s Empathetically Joyous Mickey 17 is a Satirical Anti-Capitalist Sci-Fi Barnburner
I believe Mickey 17, the latest satirical barnburner from Academy Award-winning director Bong Joon Ho (Parasite), will go down as one of 2025’s most polarizing efforts. This is an unsubtle science fiction takedown of religiously intolerant wannabe fascist politicians, scientific denialism, cult of personality groupthink cluelessness, colonizer xenophobia, and economic (and by extension social) inequality that pulls zero punches and could care less who it offends. Love it or hate it, this inventive jolt of jolly chaos goes for broke, and by extension is Joon Ho’s best English-language effort to date.
Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) is a crewmember on a colonization mission to a distant planet with a unique job title. He volunteered to be “Expendable,” a Guinea Pig who will literally die over and over again to aid the ship’s medical staff, scientists, and technicians sort out every potential hazard, unexpected roadblock, or technical misfire long before they become a danger to anyone else. Mickey can do this because of the latest advances in cloning, his body printed out of a gigantic copier again and again and again after each death is verified.
Based on the novel Mickey7 written by Edward Ashton and adapted for the screen by the director, it’s no secret where Joon Ho’s sensibilities lie. He surrounds Mickey, who gets labeled with a series of sequential numbers every time he gets copied back out into existence and carries the moniker of Mickey 17 when first introduced here, with a colorful ensemble of eccentrics. Some of them are capitalistic nincompoops who see the young man as a blood and guts commodity they can do with as they please. Others view him as an unfortunate cog in a vile machine, and they mourn each one of his deaths while also wondering if each of his subsequent resurrections might be his last.
It may come to that when Mickey 17 is assumed to have met his demise in the belly of a beast only to have the slimy native creatures of a distant new world save him instead. But not before Mickey 18 is spat out of the ship’s copier, and as two clones cannot exist at the same time (it’s the one unbreakable rule of being an Expendable; when it’s your time to die, you better make sure you die, otherwise you’ll be dead for good), this is bad news for both Mickeys. This ship’s mealymouthed, religiously dogmatic leader Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) wants the two clones destroyed and, after that, never to be resurrected ever again.
That’s the core ethical dilemma at the center of Mickey 17, but it’s hardly the only one. Marshall is an imbecilic politician who thirsts after power for the sake of it, even though he hasn’t the first clue how to wield it (and is far too easily influenced by sycophants willing to heap underserved praise upon him). Chief amongst those is his foodie, sauce-obsessed wife Ylfa (Toni Collette). She’s more than willing to do whatever she has to if it means she can manipulate her husband to serve her own narcissistic needs.
Marshall is also a racist eugenicist. He’s obsessed with “purity,” and when he talks about making certain that the colony he and his crewmates have traveled across the stars to establish should become a “white” paradise, it’s clear he’s not referring to the snow that covers practically every inch of this new planet’s surface. It’s equally no surprise that Marshall would eagerly resort to genocide as it pertains to this world’s native inhabitants, even if they are initially peaceful towards these strange, two-legged invaders. The politician could care less. They’re not human and, as far as he’s concerned, that makes them inferior.
As exuberantly cynical as many of the film’s seriocomic aspects may be, Joon Ho’s handling of Mickey 17’s journey and his relationship with those closest to him is surprisingly sincere and empathetically multifaceted. Whether in his interactions with the oddly angry and excitably bitter Mickey 18 or in his romantically tender interactions with his shipboard girlfriend Nasha (Naomi Ackie), this is a wholesomely altruistic character whose heroism lies in his steadfast belief in the inherent goodness of others.
Even after so many deaths, even when betrayed by someone he believed was the best of all his friends, Mickey still thinks people will do the right thing when allowed to do so. This adds a rich layer of hopeful optimism that’s been absent from even some of the director’s most acclaimed works, including Parasite and Memories of Murder. It’s a refreshing change of pace that helps make the more pessimistically perceptive elements of this production hit home with shocking authority, while also gifting it an aura of emotionally heartfelt euphoria that’s wonderful.
Pattison is superb in his dual role, balancing varying aspects of each Mickey’s personality with nimble cleverness. Ackie is even better, Nasha’s focused scorched-earth intensity as she discovers she’s willing to do whatever it takes to protect the man (men?) she loves a tour-de-force triumph. The remainder of the cast is also outstanding (especially Anamaria Vartolomei as one of the ship’s security agents whose amorous affections do not fit Marshall’s rigidly heterosexual ideologies), and I liked how they all seemed to slip into Joon Ho’s anything-goes sci-fi whirligig with such apparent ease. However, I will be curious to see how audiences respond to Ruffalo’s cartoonish buffoonery, especially considering how much his performance uncannily mimics an overweight, overly-tanned grotesquerie with a bad combover whose name rhymes with “Ronald Frump” (I think he’s terrific).
Not everything here works. Pieces do fall flat, and at 137 minutes, the film does hit its share of lulls. But in a cinematic landscape littered with mealymouthed big-budget Hollywood productions terrified to say anything meaningful (let alone boldly comment on current events), Joon Ho’s life-affirming, anti-capitalist science fiction marvel is a thing of monumental beauty. It bravely goes into the Orwellian unknown, and it does so with a crooked smile and a pep in its step. Mickey 17 may not end up being the year’s best film, but it will undoubtedly become one of its most essential.
Film Rating: 4 (out of 4)
