Bong Joon-ho’s latest feature film, “Mickey 17,” was released on Friday, March 7. Starring Robert Pattinson in the titular role, with Naomi Acke, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo as the supporting cast. This sci-fi adventure film presents the life of a disposable crew member who works to make a foreign planet habitable.
The story is set in the far future of 2054 on a space colony on the snowy planet Niflheim. Mickey Barnes (Patterson) had signed up for the expedition as an “Expendable,” a worker tasked with doing odd jobs and dangerous experiments that may result in death. However, the onboard science team regenerates him into a new cloned body of himself with Earth-banned technology. Feeling out of place during the first few days of the initial voyage, Mickey meets Nasha Barridge (Acke), one of the security agents, and pursues a romantic relationship with her.
Over the next four years, Mickey dies numerous times and is now on his 17th iteration by the time humanity is ready to explore the barren snowy terrains of Niflheim. Timo (Yeun) and the rest of his squad leave him for dead when the cavern suddenly caves in. Yet, Mickey is saved due to a chance encounter with the native alien critters (which look like large roly-polies) that pushed him back to the surface. Returning to his bedroom in the docked spaceship, he runs into the newly generated Mickey 18 (also Patterson).
Due to a strict policy regarding “multiples” of the same person, they fight each other to determine who should stay alive. Their squabble is interrupted with Mickey 18 goes back to their bedroom with Nasha, as Mickey 17 is spontaneously invited to dinner with the egomaniacal politician running the colony. He is served experimental meat by Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo) and his wife, Ylfa Marshall (Collette), causing him immense abdominal pain. He later informs his other self of the dinner situation, enraging Mickey 18.
Throughout the film, Robert Patterson does a phenomenal job giving distinctive portrayals to both of his character’s variants. Mickey 17’s timid demeanor contrasts Mickey 18’s more brash and foul-mannered tendencies, along with giving them unique accents. His character grows to accept his other self and work toward understanding his purpose.
Mark Ruffalo’s Kenneth Marshall was another noteworthy performance, as he captures the essence of mindless corrupt politicians, by making outrageous claims at any given time and talking in a verbose tone of voice. At one point in the storyline, he announces an initiative to repopulate with a “superior and pure” human race and eliminate the native creatures of the colonized planet, which further cements these ideas. I always found it funny when his wife leaned into his ear to feed him new ideas, then repeated it almost verbatim as if he thought of it himself.
However, the story had me hooked almost all throughout and left me wondering what Mickey would get himself into next. Once Kenneth Marshall was introduced, I already knew he was going to be a character I would love to hate. And then everything wraps up in a nice way to give closure to Mickey’s life of uncertainty and we get to see what would become of the rest of the colony’s crew.
All in all, “Mickey 17” features incredible performances from its cast members, along with having a pretty good sci-fi story about a disposable worker. Make sure to give it a watch at one of your local theaters or when it hits streaming in the next few weeks.
