A disposable employee is sent on a human expedition to colonize the ice world Niflheim. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact.
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo
Release Date: March 7, 2025
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Rated R for violent content, language throughout, sexual content and drug material.
Runtime: 2h 17m
Review:
Mickey 17 is another darkly funny but thematically packed sci-fi feature from Bong Joon-ho powered by a fun dual performance from Robert Pattinson. Fans of Bong Joon-ho will find plenty to enjoy here as there are traces of Snowpiercer, The Host and Parasite scattered throughout this entry. He still manages to create a distinctively quirky world for his characters to inhabit with plenty of not so subtle allusions to current day issues. It’s decidedly lighter in tone than his previous efforts but there's plenty of darker themes at play simmering underneath such as socioeconomic disparity, demagoguery along with many more. It’s a film that's far denser once you start digging deeper into what's going on screen. There are a few choppy spots here and there which would have benefited from some tighter editing to make the film more effective overall. At the center of it all is Robert Pattinson who clearly feels in his element playing the dim "expendable" worker. Pattinson's turn is fun from the start as we watch his human guinea pig live, die in rinse and repeat fashion. He takes it to another level once his much darker and angrier "multiple" appears on screen which gives him a wonderful berth of emotional range to work through to give us two distinctive versions of the same character. It makes him the most interesting performer onscreen for a variety of reason even though the supporting cast is made up of talented performers who aren't given as much to work with as Pattinson. Naomi Ackie and Steven Yeun are solid, but the script leaves them underserved with neither leaving the sort of impression they should since they are integral parts of Mickey's story. Likewise, Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette's oversized characters are fun but there's not a ton of depth to them since they written in such a cartoonish manner, Ruffalo's oversized capped teeth notwithstanding. It’s not a horrible misstep but it does leave you wishing that for a film that's over 2 hours long it would have given these characters a bit more depth. Small issues aside Mickey 17 is the kind of darkly funny satire we've come to expect Bong Joon-ho and another solid entry in his filmography.
B+
