Summary
A gleefully unhinged sci-fi satire sees Bong Joon-ho at his sharpest, balancing absurdity, social critique, and existential crisis with chaos.
So, you’re Bong Joon-ho. Your film Parasite unanimously wins the Palme d’Or, becomes the highest-grossing South Korean film in history, and pulls off the Guinness World Record feat of scoring Academy Awards for Best Picture, International Feature Film, Original Screenplay, and Director. Naturally, your next move is a sci-fi black comedy romance with Robert Pattinson.
For those only half-watching Bong’s career, this might seem like an odd, left-field pivot into Hollywood. But let’s not forget: Snowpiercer already took him there, and Okja brought the titular genetic super pig to Netflix screens. This is hardly new ground for a filmmaker whose tongue has always been planted firmly in cheek.
Based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey7, writer/director Bong leans into the same over-the-top satire as Okja, landing somewhere near Starship Troopers. The film follows Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his childhood friend Timo (Steven Yeun), who flee Earth for the offworld colony of Niflheim after falling into debt over a Macron business.
Without reading the fine print, Mickey signs on as an ‘Expendable’—a human drone sent in for the dangerous work. When he dies (which he has, sixteen times by the time we meet him), he’s simply printed again with his memories intact. Things get complicated when Mickey 17 is mistakenly presumed dead and Mickey 18 takes his place.
There’s very little subtlety to MICKEY 17, which might be one of the most glorious things about it. The expedition is led by failed political candidate turned cult leader Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), whose followers wear red caps with slogans on them. Yes, it’s that kind of picture. Yet in a film where Pattinson regularly flops out of a printing tube like meat, and Marshall’s wife Ylfa (a wonderfully unhinged Toni Collette) has an unhealthy obsession with sauces, you can’t afford to take half-bites.
One of the joys of the first half of the film is watching Pattinson’s take on the monotony of functional immortality. Between the daily grind and being dispensed in increasingly absurd fashion, Mickey 17 has resigned himself to eke out existence just as it is. A light romance with security agent Nasha (Naomi Ackie), who has remained his girlfriend since his first iteration, adds a sliver of emotional grounding.
With the arrival of Mickey 18—and a wonderfully chaotic dual turn from Pattinson—the film shifts gears. The discovery of giant bugs on Niflheim sets up broad satire on the nature of colonisation, religious fanaticism, and arguably, immigration as well. Here, Ruffalo and Collette deliver their batty best, skewering everything from conservative televangelists to political leaders like, well, you know.
There’s possibly too much happening in the last act of MICKEY 17, particularly during an extended denouement that tries to pull the rug out from under us more than once. Still, Bong’s film remains a sharp and enjoyable sci-fi flick with a brain—one smart enough to know when to be stupid.
2025 | USA, South Korea | DIRECTOR: Bong Joon-ho | WRITERS: Bong Joon-ho | CAST: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. Pictures (USA), Universal Pictures (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 137 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 6 March 2025 (Australia), 7 March 2025 (USA)
