Live. Die. Repeat: Bong Joon-ho’s ‘Mickey 17’

Making history at the Oscars, the box office, and encouraging us all to overcome the one-inch barrier of subtitles, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite was a cinematic juggernaut unlike anything we’ve seen. Director Bong brought his signature class-conscious, anti-capitalist sentiments to the world stage, delivered through a wildly entertaining caper whose shifts in genre and tone weren’t just swift and sharp, but also cut deep. Needless to say, his next film would always be a very hotly anticipated one, if not a nigh impossible act to follow after what many consider his magnum opus. After almost 6 years and a whole pandemic later, the wait is finally over. The king has returned with a $120 million blank canvas from Warner Bros. to create the satirical sci-fi blockbuster, Mickey 17.

Everyone has been screwed over by a fine print at some point in their life. But in the case of the simple, yet affable Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), it is an honest mistake people are still making in the year 2050. Desperate to escape a loan shark after his macaron shop went under, Mickey enlists in an interstellar colonial expedition to the distant ice planet, Niflheim, led by disgraced former politician, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette). However, Mickey has unintentionally signed up for the most dangerous and dehumanizing job of the entire crew; an expendable. A glorified lab rat whose job is to be killed and then regenerated with most of his memories intact using a controversial human printing technology (that has been outlawed back on Earth) so that the colony can “fail upwards” on their new world.

After being poisoned, gassed, and exposed to lethal amounts of toxins and radiation, Mickey is on his 17th go-around when he falls into a crevasse and is left to be eaten by the giant hairy doodlebug-looking inhabitants of Niflheim (or Creepers as the humans call them). Mickey is ready to die for the 17th time, but miraculously makes it out alive. When he returns to the base, he discovers that he was presumed dead and that an 18th Mickey has already been printed, putting both Mickeys in grave danger as multiples are illegal and the punishment is both Mickeys being executed.

Director Bong picks up right where he left off with Parasite and has not missed a beat in doing what he does best. Combining the oppressive, grimy, industrial sci-fi dystopia of Snowpiercer with the goofier, more pantomime sensibilities and oddball sense of wonder of Okja, Mickey 17 is a wonderful marriage of his two previous English-language films. Taking the hallmarks of his masterful Korean work and amplifying them to such a heightened degree, while still delivering on pressing and timely social commentary. Bong explores many compelling themes in Mickey 17 without ever being crushed under the weight of his ambitions, such as his usual anti-capitalist “eat the rich” mantra but also colonialism, environmentalism, the ethics and dangers surrounding technology and how it can be abused, cults of personality, and more philosophical and existential ideas surrounding mortality and what truly makes you a person. It’s an impressive high-wire act for Director Bong to not undermine these themes and ideas with the absurd, goofy tone and the unapologetically blunt satire of the film, but as he has done many times before, he handles the tone perfectly.

The cast buys into this mad-cap, rambunctious tone and energy of the film with performances to match. Robert Pattinson portrays Mickey as a lovable doofus with a droll voice and a depressing lack of dignity; a reluctant lapdog to his superiors without any real inclination or self-worth. When another Mickey enters the fray, that is where Pattinson truly shines with his dual role with how he distinguishes Mickey 17 and 18. 17 being the neurotic, jittery one with a constant deer-in-headlights expression, and 18 the more naive, impulsive, and aggressive of the duo. Pattinson perfectly embodies both sides of the same coin with great pathos in a performance that is wonderfully endearing. Naomi Ackie is a fiery and exuberant presence as Mickey’s romantic partner Nasha who lights up the screen like a firecracker; Steven Yeun is having fun as the slimeball, unreliable friend of Mickey’s that got him in hot water in the first place; Toni Collette is doing some fine mustache-twirling as a narcissistic trophy-wife with a borderline fetish for sauces.

But it is Mark Ruffalo’s portrayal of Marshall and more broadly the film’s blunt force satire that will be what people will be discussing most about Mickey 17. Marshall is a heartless, vain failed politician with some shiny veneers, the bravado of a swindling televangelist, and the face of a perennially puckered anus. He’s lost his last two elections, but still has his acolytes and cult-like followers that all wear red hats with a dumb slogan on it (get it?) and talks about his dream of creating a “master race” on Niflheim. As you can see, Director Bong is laying it on a bit thick, but after Donald Trump openly mocked Parasite’s best picture win back in 2020, it’s no surprise that he would have his revenge by savaging lampooning him in his next film. And casting Ruffalo, one of Hollywood’s most vocal critics of Trump to play his surrogate in the film, was the cherry on top. This sort of depiction of an unhinged and dangerous wannabe fascist in power when Trump has just been re-elected will feel very DOA and tone-deaf to many in hindsight (a victim of multiple release date delays), but a film this ridiculous needs a villain operating on the same ridiculous wavelength and register as the rest of the film, and Ruffalo relishes in it.

Mickey 17 is Boon Joon-ho’s Starship Troopers; a mega-budget satirical sci-fi blockbuster that tackles fascism, colonialism and authoritarian regimes with its tongue firmly pressed against its cheek (that morons might misinterpret for decades to come). It may not reach the heights of his near-perfect Korean films, but Director Bong still refuses to make a bad film and has crafted his best English-language work thus far with this zany, imaginative, and surprisingly hopeful story in a very cynical and hopeless world.

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