TL;DR – Weird, I mean profoundly weird, but maybe not weird enough

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film

Warning – Some scenes may cause distress.

Mickey 17 Review –

There are some movies that you will see just because they have a specific director attached to them. For me, one of those directors is absolutely Bong Joon-ho. My first introduction to his style of films was Okja, and what an introduction it was. Indeed, I’ll steal a moment from my conclusion and recommend watching Okja right now on Netflix, though it may change the way you view the world. This was followed by the phenomenal Parasite, which made me immediately hit yes when I got the invitation to see his follow-up: a weird political sci-fi about a man who can’t die.    

So, to set the scene, friends Mickey (Robert Pattinson) and Timo (Steven Yeun) made some bad deals on Earth, and to stop themselves from being cut up into little pieces by a load shark, they decided to jump on one of the new colony ships heading out into the beyond. Theirs is going to the icy world of Niflheim, and while Timo can sweet talk his way onto the ship, Mickey must sign up to be an ‘expendable’. This is someone who has his body and mind scanned so that they can take on dangerous jobs, and if they die, we just make a new one. Well, we start the film off with Mickey 17, who is currently in a very precarious position, and I am not sure anyone immensely cares.

Now, I do think I need to prepare you for this film because it is making some choices. The first is Robert Pattinson’s performance, well, more performances. Each of the Mickeys has their own distinct personalities, yet they also feel like part of the whole unit, which is Mickey. That is a challenging balance to pull off, and I think it only works because Robert is picking a very off-base performance that somehow works in the middle of this bonkers film. I also really loved Naomi Ackie’s performance, given how she crafts Nasha Barridge as a person who is perfect and calm but can explode in a moment of passion and anger.   

While the performances are what makes the movie work, they are not the bedrock of the film. That is the narrative and the themes that they are exploring. The first main issue is the commoditization of the human body. Once you devalue life, you see the inevitable outflow of that in how you are treated. Who cares about the radiation exposure if you can just print out a new one? They call them expendables for a reason. But then you are grappling with notions of immortality and the crux of the film, what happens when you have multiples of the same person. These are the fascinating questions that sci-fi revels in, and that is even before they find alien life on their snow planet.   

This is then compounded with overlapping themes of the intersection of religion/politics/propaganda/science/performance/race/stupidity. At the core of this is mission ‘leader’ Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), who is a combination of Donald Trump and Joel Osteen, all bluster and control but little competency. He lives an entirely stage-managed life of excess while trying to create his perfect society in his white, icy world. It does feel really on the nose, given ‘waves hands around’, but it probably would not have had if the release date had not been pushed so far. But then that does give you a touch more groundwork for the narrative and lets them get more zany in the depictions of characters like Ylfa Marshall (Toni Collette).

While the film is a lot of fun, and the cast is an absolute delight, I am not sure it quite landed where it wanted to be. They are running through so many different themes and characters that it is clear that some get left out in the wash. For example, Timo ends up feeling very much superfluous to the plot. The many themes pile into each other at times, creating gridlock. You see that the most in the end coda that grinds to a halt and feels almost detached from the rest of the film.

In the end, do we recommend Mickey 17? Look, it is not a film without faults. However, it still captivated me from the opening frame in the snow. It is a profoundly weird film, but it always fascinated me. I may recommend it for the performances alone, as everyone is playing to the rafters. Have you watched Mickey 17? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.If you liked Mickey 17, we would recommend to you The Creator.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Mickey 17
Directed by – Bong Joon-ho
Screenplay by – Bong Joon-ho
Based on – Mickey7 by Edward Ashton
Music by – Jung Jae-il
Cinematography by – Darius Khondji
Edited by – Yang Jin-mo
Production/Distribution Companies – Plan B Entertainment, Offscreen, Kate Street Picture Company, Domain Entertainment, Universal Pictures & Warner Bros Pictures.
Starring – Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Mark Ruffalo & Toni Collette with Holliday Grainger, Anamaria Vartolomei, Angus Imrie, Cameron Britton, Patsy Ferran, Daniel Henshall, Steve Park, Ian Hanmore, Ellen Robertson & Edward Davis
Rating – Australia: M; Canada: 14A; Germany: 12; New Zealand: M; United Kingdom: 15; United States: R