Mickey 17

Whenever I’m lamenting the state of the world, which is sadly too often these days, I sometimes think back to the Parasite cultural takeover of 2019 and (pre-pandemic) 2020 in search of a much-needed serotonin boost. From my first unassuming watch in August 2019 after hearing vague praises over the internet to multiple rewatches with friends and family to a packed cinema club lecture hall screening and laughing, gasping, and crying with the crowd to witnessing its historic Oscar sweep in real time and jumping for joy, few films overtook my life for months on end quite like Parasite. My reverence for this remarkable work has never dissipated. For the last five years, I have indulged in Bong Joon-ho’s filmography to grasp fractions of that first magical Parasite viewing and pined for his eventual follow-up. Under such lofty expectations, Bong Joon-ho’s newest film Mickey 17 might have been doomed to fail. It is certainly not as refined and seamless as the Palme d’Or winner. Yet when you have a film this ambitious and self-assured, with an abundance of riches in front of and behind the screen, it is impossible to not be charmed by it.

Perhaps I should preface that, on paper, Bong’s latest and semi-greatest Mickey 17 feels scientifically engineered for me to fall in love with it. You’re telling me he made a movie with Robert Pattinson, Steven Yeun, and Toni Collette? Robert Pattinson of “2012 bedroom watch of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse with my cousin” and “2014 school newspaper club watch of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” fame? Steven Yeun of “that time I gleefully showed Burning to my friends and Courtney fell asleep” fame? Toni Collette of “that time I gleefully showed Hereditary to my friends and Courtney was scared shitless on my dorm room floor” fame? Never before has a film been so in line with my niche but personally valuable experiences. And though it can be tempting to dismiss subjectivity in favor of a review that declares verdicts on films based on the truth and only the truth, feigned objectivity is exhausting. Mickey 17 worked as well as it did for me because of my previous experiences, and to dismiss my own feelings as “unprofessional” would result in a review that fails to accurately convey my opinions. Normalize letting your own experiences influence your enjoyment of art! 

In any case, Bong clearly had enough panache, vision, and verve to succeed beyond my exceedingly thick rose-colored glasses because Mickey 17 is a bold, playful, and unapologetic romp amidst the Hollywood studio noise. It is a fully fledged American blockbuster in the vein of Snowpiercer and Okja, but arguably even more immediate, poignant, and angry in its themes. It is no secret that Mickey 17 was subjected to multiple delays, but there is a dark poetry to this film coming out when it did. Just as America began its pre-programmed backslide into utter chaos and borderline tyranny, Bong came out swinging with this dystopian alarm call.

Meet Mickey Barnes, a down on his luck man suffering the woes of late stage capitalist hell who boards the spaceship of a failed alt-right politician full of refugees hoping to colonize a far away planet and make a better life for themselves. Unfortunately, Mickey accidentally applies to be an expendable, meaning he will be put through a variety of depraved experiments and sadistic expeditions and will be uploaded into a clone of his body every time he inevitably dies. It is a very literal representation of the plight of the worker under capitalism, where we are viewed as exploitable, replaceable cogs in a soulless machine. The moment we lack the efficiency or resilience required, we are replaced by the next person in line. And we shouldn’t bother complaining, since we should be so thankful to have gotten the opportunity in the first place.

But putting aside the horrifying fundamental implications of this film, Mickey 17 is thrilling and entertaining. Though there are so many aspects contributing to the sheer fun that is this film, its success lies squarely on the back of the ever-evolving Robert Pattinson. Pattinson’s unique star quality lends itself to a variety of roles, as he has an edge rarely seen in A-listers, endless gravitas, and an inherent silliness that allows him to shine in riskier roles. He utilizes all of that here in a performance that is surely one of his best to date. After an accounting error arises, there ends up being two Mickeys at once: the dorky bootlicker Mickey 17 and the moody rebel Mickey 18. Bong’s surprising tenderness, blockbuster trappings, and unquenchable goofiness all lead to Pattinson giving one of the most vivacious and playful performances in recent memory. His charisma is off the charts, his voices are numerous and cartoonish, and the freakiness is delectable! Riding off of the high of his performance, Mickey 17 lands somewhere on the spectrum between classic slapstick and ultra-modern revolution stoking. 

To an extent, Bong’s past blockbusters have felt like a watered-down version of his typical approach. It’s not that nuance gets lost in literal translation, but rather that delineating social themes through a mainstream-appealing blockbuster will always result in simplifications. However, Mickey 17 feels like his most thematically adept studio movie yet, serving as an entertaining vessel for class consciousness. Perhaps the Democratic Party could learn a thing or two about accessible messaging from Bong. The aspects of the film that feel the most on-the-nose also happen to be the most timely, so their lack of subtlety becomes a confrontation with the ugly truth of what our society has become.

Most notably, you have the always wonderful Mark Ruffalo playing an obvious lovechild between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and it is glorious to behold. Hence, early 2025 was the prime time to finally release this film. Ruffalo is cartoonishly evil to a degree that you’d probably accuse the film of being unrealistic if he wasn’t somehow less extreme than the man currently sitting in the Oval Office. Though our current politicians may not be populating a blizzard planet and orchestrating the demise of adorable giant bugs, I am certain they would leap at the opportunity to.

Beyond Pattinson and Ruffalo, everyone else is great too, of course. Yeun is a reliably fun presence, while Collette has so much sauce in the figurative and literal sense. Naomi Ackie has the most normal character by default, but she grounds the film well and has remarkable chemistry with Pattinson.

Truly, Bong knows how to keep it fun but real. The set pieces are elaborate and exciting, the dialogue is quippy and observant, and the themes are scathing and poignant. It is true that Bong can’t fully avoid the trappings of the blockbuster genre, especially since American audiences desperately need messages to be spelled out for them these days. But if Bong’s biggest sin is delivering a film whose critique of late-stage capitalism is too easily comprehended by the masses, then that makes Mickey 17 a pretty stellar achievement all around. It is akin to a double chainsaw to capitalism, with one chain being unbridled anger towards the elites who exploit the masses for their own benefit and the other being humor, since if you can laugh with its zany characters and unhinged slapstick, you can laugh at its despicable portrayal of late-stage capitalism that is so adjacent to our own.

Ultimately, Mickey 17 is not just a film but a rallying cry. Subtlety is commendable, but whispered condemnations do not a revolution make. With its quirky tone and premise indicative of society’s rot, Bong amusingly points to a horrific future that we may be headed towards. Things are terrible now, but we can stop them from getting so awful that Donald Trump—I mean Kenneth Marshall—is reprinting our bodies ad nauseam in order to execute his ethno-nationalist goals. We don’t need eighteen of ourselves to combat tyranny. We just need each other… but a double chainsaw wouldn’t hurt. Onward, comrades! 

8/10