Mickey 17 (2025)

7.3

While not as great as his previous films, Bong Joon-ho’s space-clone escapade is still entertaining and worthwhile

Amazon Video

Movie

United Kingdom, United States of America

English

Adventure, Comedy, Science Fiction

2025

BONG JOON-HO

Anamaria Vartolomei, Holliday Grainger, Mark Ruffalo

137 min

TLDR

Less Parasite, more Okja and Snowpiercer.

What it's about

In the year 2054, in a colony in outer space, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) signs up to be an “expendable,” a worker who is given fatal assignments in the name of research and replaced with a clone upon death. Things get tricky when Mickey’s 17th iteration survives and competes with his current iteration for a spot in the colony.

The take

Bong Joon-ho’s follow-up to Parasite, Mickey17, lacks the precision and sharp wit of its predecessor. The satire felt too obvious, while the narrations went on for too long, often dampening the film’s momentum. The biggest transgressor, however, is the film’s villain, a Trump-incarnate played by Mark Ruffalo, who seemed more ridiculous than scary. But while it may not be Bong’s best, Mickey 17 is still an entertaining and enlightening film, thanks in large part to the rich and scarily believable world Bong built and the crazy performances offered by Pattinson. Pattinson has an uncanny ability to make identically-dressed clones feel like two separate, distinguishable entities. From the gait and posture to the tone and timber, Mickey 17 and 18 could not be any more different. Watching Pattinson achieve this duplicity alone makes the film worthwhile.

What stands out

Apart from Pattinson’s scene-stealing performance, I can’t help but wonder if Mickey17 would benefit from a series, rather than a film, treatment. Its world-building was deep and expansive, but it also felt too crammed to explore in just two hours. Much has been said about shows being better off as films, but this is a rare case of a film being better off as a show.

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