There were many concerns going into Bong Joon-ho’s “Mickey 17.” His return to filmmaking after his landmark 2019 drama “Parasite” was to be a dark sci-fi comedy under Warner Brothers, an adaptation of Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel “Mickey7.” While Bong is no stranger to American cinema, Warner Brothers has been prone to anti-artist tendencies since CEO David Zaslav took over in 2022.
Zaslav, in his brief tenure at the company, has deleted two fully finished feature films when they didn’t meet expectations in order to gain a tax write-off. As “Mickey 17” moved release dates from March 2024 to January 2025 to at one point being removed from Warner Brothers’ calendar entirely, fans worried that Bong’s return to the big screen may never see the light of day, or if it did, be severely compromised.
It is therefore my pleasure, and somewhat my surprise, that “Mickey 17” is a delight while remaining unmistakably Bong’s. While the adaptation can occasionally feel like it’s barely holding itself together, Bong’s steady hand as a director alongside Robert Pattinson’s commitment to his dual roles makes for a comedy that feels fantastical and all too real at the same time.
The film follows Mickey Barnes (Pattinson), a well-meaning stooge attempting to escape the mob on a dying Earth not too far in the future. As a colonial mission spearheaded by disgraced senator Kenneth Marsh (Mark Ruffalo) is set to take off, Mickey haphazardly gets on board by agreeing to be an “expendable,” a human test dummy who braves the (often fatal) extremities of outer space, getting cloned and brought back after each death. When the 17th clone of Mickey ends up surviving a mission without his colony noticing, he’s brought face to face with the 18th, and the two must band together with Mickey’s lover Nasha (Naomi Ackie) to save the colony from Marsh’s fascistic grip.
Did that sound like a lot? Because it’s not even scratching the surface of what this film covers — the story starts in the middle of the narrative then cuts back to the beginning, a technique known as ‘in medias res.’ It takes another 40-ish minutes to return to where we began in this two-hour and twenty-minute film, and there’s another movie’s worth of story after those 40 minutes are up. Bong’s script verges on the edge of being bloated, but it retains its focus just enough to remain cohesive.
This is aided by a slew of committed performers who move everything along at a breakneck pace. Ruffalo does his best Trump impression (red cap and all), Ackie gives a “manic pixie dream girl” role as much depth as she can, and Steven Yeun shines a constant grin on the most punchable face you’ve ever seen.
Even among these huge performances, Pattinson’s roles as Mickeys 17 and 18 stand out as particularly impressive. It allows him to flex his range as an actor: 17 is a nervy little babygirl akin to that GQ video where he scours New York for a hot dog while 18 is a violently aggressive rascal resembling his work in the Safdie brothers’ “Good Time.” Inspired by his own work and the “Jackass” films, Pattinson continues to prove his punch as one of his generation’s most physically talented actors.
Despite the comedic tone, Bong never forgets that this is a dystopian narrative. Underneath all the absurdity is an attitude of despair about the situation our characters’ find themselves in: music is rare here, allowing moments of sadness or comedy to play out to their fullest extent. He toes the line between genres very carefully — one may recall his sudden tone shift in “Parasite” from comedy to drama, but here the two exist at the same time.
While the text may prove a tad contentious or complex for a charged political climate in America, “Mickey 17” is a bittersweet yet thoroughly entertaining satire of our anarcho-capitalist nightmare. Bong is able to find the human element even when things seem hopeless; this is the mark of any great artist.
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