‘Mickey 17’ review: Bong Joon Ho unites with Robert Pattinson for quirky near-future drama

Dir/scr: Bong Joon Ho. US/South Korea. 2025. 137mins 

Six years after his Oscar-winning Parasite, writer-director Bong Joon Ho returns with a sci-fi darkish comedy that echoes a number of the most potent themes of his earlier movies, albeit on a a lot larger price range and narrative canvas. Robert Pattinson performs a mediocre everyman 30 years sooner or later who performs thankless, extremely harmful duties for his fellow Earthlings as all of them head to a distant planet — every time he dies, a duplicate of him is created who will perform the identical obligations. Recalling Snowpiercer’s dystopian unease, Okja’s oddball sense of humour and Parasite’s melancholy, Mickey 17 typically wobbles balancing its totally different tones. However what holds Bong’s eighth characteristic collectively is his palpable rage at humanity’s cruelty combined along with his compassion for a protagonist who can’t die – and, due to this fact, can’t really reside.

Pattinson’s efficiency provides this sci-fi image its resonance

Enjoying as a Berlin Particular Gala after its London premiere, this Warner Bros movie opens in South Korea on February 28 then rolls out globally, releasing within the US on March 7 and the UK on April 18. Pattinson supplies box-office oomph and is joined by Oscar-nominated actors Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo. However Bong’s third English-language characteristic is a proudly idiosyncratic affair that may wrestle to attach with mainstream audiences with its portrait of a damaged society barrelling towards disaster.  

Within the yr 2054, Mickey 17 (Pattinson) works on Niflheim, a distant colony run by the fanatical, bigoted tyrant Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo). Mickey’s uncommon moniker comes from the truth that he’s the seventeenth iteration of himself — needing to flee his money owed on Earth, the not-so-bright younger man swiftly agreed to this off-planet job through which he’ll do dangerous duties for the colony, his reminiscences implanted in a brand new reproduction after every dying. However when he falls right into a deep crevasse and is presumed useless, Mickey manages to make it again to base — solely to find that his bosses have already ‘printed’ Mickey 18 (additionally Pattinson). This presents an issue as a result of ‘multiples’ — two variations of the identical reproduction — are unlawful, which means that the Mickeys want to cover the truth that they each exist.

Adapting Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel, Bong envisions a not-so-future civilisation through which an egomaniacal chief is embraced as a messiah and lowly plebeians akin to Mickey are termed ‘expendables’, their solely perform to function disposable grunts and lab rats. In a number of movies, Bong has targeted on haves and have-nots, culminating in Parasite’s essential and industrial triumph, however Mickey 17 could also be his bleakest exploration, with Mickey handled as virtually subhuman. Whether or not it’s his backstabbing good friend Timo (Yeun) or sympathetic coworker Kai (Anamaria Vartolomei), Mickey solicits the identical nosy, insensitive query from these round him: “What’s it wish to die?”

Washed-out cinematography from Darius Khondji (coming back from Okja) and Fiona Crombie’s dingy manufacturing design expertly depict this colony as a lusciously grungy hellhole. Mickey’s solely respite from this gloom comes from a love affair with Nasha (Naomi Ackie), a kindly Niflheim safety officer who sees him as greater than only a human guinea pig, though she has her flaws: when Mickey 18 arrives, she eagerly suggests the sexual potentialities of getting two of the very same boyfriend.

The place Mickey 17 conveys a dimbulb geniality, Mickey 18 has an antagonistic manner and loathes his wimpy predecessor. Frightened of discovery by the authorities, Mickey 18 thinks Mickey 17 ought to die — in any case, they’re the identical — however Mickey 17 argues that they’re totally different sufficient that what makes him distinctive could be gone without end. All of a sudden, Mickey’s existential malaise of dying repeatedly will get changed by one thing much more despairing — the prospect of by no means coming again to life.

Finally this snowy planet reveals a secret – the existence of indigenous critters, which Kenneth marginalises by calling them “creepers” and ordering their extermination. Longtime Bong followers will discover parallels in Mickey 17’s pro-environment, pro-animals stance with that of earlier works akin to Okja. However the writer-director tends to oversell his political commentary, as an illustration making the power-mad Kenneth and his vile spouse Ylfa (Collette) grating caricatures. (Not serving to issues, Ruffalo juts out his jaw in such a means that his one-note efficiency is clearly meant to be a takedown of Donald Trump.)

However simply as Mickey 17’s mad imaginative and prescient dangers careening off its axis — akin to when the comedy turns into too broad — this overstuffed however arresting movie returns to its titular character’s dilemma, that of a standard man toiling in a horrible job to learn these with wealth and energy. Pattinson has enjoyable taking part in the Mickeys — one timid, one hostile — nevertheless it’s his efficiency as Mickey 17 that offers this sci-fi image its resonance. Dying again and again, our hero simply needs to verify his soul survives; Pattinson locates it from the primary body.