Having all the awards from the Palme d’Or to four Oscars including Best Picture with Parasite, director Bong Joon-ho is a position to do whatever he wants, and with his latest feature Mickey 17, he returns to the sci-fi genre with a big budget and tells a story that continues his fascination with clashes between classes.
Based on the 2022 novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, Mickey 17 is set in the year 2054 where Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) joins a space colony as an “Expendable”, a disposable worker who gets cloned every time he dies for research purposes. As the colony arrives at the snowy planet of Niflheim with the hope of colonization, Mickey is given a series of lethal assignments and regenerated after death, until a mishap happens, in which two Mickeys are both alive.
Whereas Bong is more thoughtful with films set in his homeland, albeit maintaining his touch of satire and black comedy, his sci-fi films that are often driven by a high concept are his way of expressing his weird and sometimes wild side. In the case of Mickey 17, whose premise is not far off from Duncan Jones’ Moon, this is Bong’s funniest and arguably his most twisted film, where Mickey seems to accept his role as an Expendable as he dies in often horrific ways, whilst some of his colleagues ask him what it feels like to die.
However, as much as a lot of the cast members show off their funny bone, it is Robert Pattinson that dominates the screen. Although all of the Mickeys are essentially the same person, each one behaves differently, as depicted through the buddy antics between Mickeys 17 and 18, both of which are the prominent figures. Considering we have seen a funny side from Pattinson in Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, seeing him in two performances that bounce off one another where one is feeble and the other is aggressive, Pattinson should be doing more comedy, albeit the twisted type.
With the film’s sci-fi setting that touches themes of colonization, global economic collapse and cruelty within the workplace, Bong is saying a lot, to the point that it feels like you are watching multiple movies at once. Whilst you have Naomi Ackie finds that balance of drama and comedy as Mickey’s love interest, you have Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette performing in their own movie as the authoritarian married couple with sinister plans, with Ruffalo in particular giving out Trump vibes through his egomaniacal dialogue. With so many moving parts including a whole subplot featuring Steven Yeun as Mickey’s slimy Earth friend, many of these moments are either unresolved or quickly explained during the film’s final minutes.
With the exception of our titular protagonist, who is wrestling with whether his life has any meaning, the other main emotional anchor are the inhabitants of Niflheim, dubbed as “creepers”. Designed by Jang Hee-chul, who has been collaborating with Bong to create monsters for his movies since 2006’s The Host, despite their freakish appearance, the creepers have more in common with the super pigs from Okja. Not only do they showcase the director’s skill with big-budget sci-fi, but never loses the toughness when he is on point on exploring those aforementioned themes.
