R | 2h 17m | Sci-Fi, Drama, Comedy, Romance | 2025
After nearly two decades quietly churning out one critically acclaimed feature after another, South Korean writer-director Bong Joon Ho finally struck box office and awards gold with “Parasite.”
The winner of four Oscars, “Parasite” was the first, and to date, only non-English language movie to win Best Picture. It took in just north of $262 million worldwide against an $11.4 million budget.
Five years after “Parasite,” Bong’s hotly anticipated follow-up, “Mickey 17” has finally arrived, and the long wait was worth it. Adapted by Bong from the 2022 novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton, the new movie is a far cry from “Parasite” on practically every level.
Mickey the Expendable
The story is set in 2056 where those in charge on Earth are attempting to colonize a planet called Nilfheim (yes, Nilfheim). Mickey (Robert Pattinson) and his fair-weather friend Timo (Steven Yeun) own a business that is going belly up. In order to evade paying a loan shark, they join a crew heading for Nilfheim.Being the smarter of the two, Timo signs on as a pilot. The slightly dim Mickey applies to become an “expendable,” not knowing exactly what that entails. He’s asked by two pre-processing agents if he’s sure what he’s agreeing to, and the largely clueless and beaming Mickey agrees.
The Rub
Once the expendable dies, they’re recycled and reproduced via a 3-D printer. Their memories are downloaded into a new body’s brain. That body is then sent out to another mission. By strict definition, they aren’t cloned, but the intent is the same.After his 16th mission, the newly minted Mickey 17 meets fellow traveler, Nasha (Naomi Ackie), a security officer. Their instant attraction leads to an intense romance, which survives for the duration of the movie, albeit with a testy challenge or two.
Once Mickey 17 is determined dead, Mickey 18 is printed, however, as it turns out, 17 survived. This is thanks to help from the “creepers,” a race of beings that resemble the offspring of armadillos and the title character from the “Alien” franchise.
The big rub here is that, on Nilfheim, only one reproduced being can exist at a time; this puts both 17 and 18 in danger of being exterminated permanently.
Socialism and Sauces
The overseers of this enterprise are the skin-crawling socialist Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his domineering wife Ylfa (Toni Collette). Ylfa is a woman obsessed with creating bizarre food sauces. Both are immediately portrayed as evil and unlikeable, something Bong could have, in retrospect, written with fewer broad strokes and more subtlety.
For the duration of his career, Pattinson has been doing his level best to not get pegged as a shallow pretty boy and, in my opinion, he’s accomplished this mission. Pattinson is best known for his four-year stretch of the “Twilight” franchise. He also took on challenging art house projects (“Cosmopolis,” “Little Ashes,” “Water for Elephants”) that would offset his teenybopper popularity with grittier, far less commercially viable productions.
For the next five years, in much the same manner as his “Twilight” co-star Kristen Stewart, Pattinson completely broke free from his “Twilight” persona. The glittering vampire was now completely in the past.
With “The Batman” (and its as-yet-to-be-produced sequel), Pattinson rebranded himself as a highly bankable action star; this has allowed him even more artistic leeway, something he’s taking full advantage of with “Mickey 17.”
The pairing of Pattinson and Bong at this point in time is a perfect cinematic storm. The former is looking for that elusive sweet spot between art and commerce. The latter is trying to deliver a follow-up to a mostly unexpected critical and commercial hit, without repeating himself while still satisfying both his old and newly acquired fan base.
The nation-building-is-a-bad-idea theme and the ill-advised acting-like-God-messing-about-with-genetic-creation mindset is clear but not blaring. You could also add to that: just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should.
Bong altered a great deal of the plot of Ashton’s book (something Ashton knew about and approved before filming started). This is a long accepted practice in filmmaking. Bong also did so without altering the bottom-line messages: Leave creation decisions up to the Maker and stay in your lane.
