Mickey 17 Review: Bong Joon-ho's Parasite Follow-Up Is Goofy And Smart But Also Flawed

Writer/director Bong Joon-ho has been recognized for years as one of modern cinema’s most talented filmmakers, but there is also no denying that his latest movie arrives with enhanced expectations. He has earned acclaim for a quarter century at this point, but his last feature had the distinction of winning four Academy Awards – including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. The brilliant success of Parasite was always going to set an exceptionally high bar for Bong’s follow-up, and while Mickey 17doesn’t quite clear that extreme standard, it is still a sharp, funny, and smart satire that only his sensibilities could make.

Some of the bigger, goofier swings don’t quite connect as desired, and structural issues end up having a negative impact on the pacing of the story, but the film succeeds with a goofy atmosphere, strong themes, and a game cast – led by Robert Pattinson in a terrific dual performance.

Based on the novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, the movie’s eponymous protagonist is Mickey Barnes (Pattinson) – a loser living in the not too distant future who finds himself in a tight spot. An attempt at starting a macaron bakery with his shifty friend Timo (Steven Yeun) results in him owing a lot of money to some extremely dangerous people, and the only option he sees to try and stay alive is to get off the planet. Learning of a mission being launched by a failed politician named Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette) to colonize an icy, distant planet called Niflheim, Mickey makes a deal to join the trip by becoming an expendable… but he doesn’t actually know what he is signing up for.

As it turns out, being an expendable means that his consciousness is uploaded into a computer and he is repeatedly used as a lab rat for dangerous scientific experiments. He is exposed to space radiation, infected with diseases, sent on deadly missions and more, and when he dies, his body is disposed of and a new Mickey is printed out. The lone bright spot in his miserable existence is his gifted and aggressive girlfriend Nasha (Naomi Ackie), but things go from bad to worse when the seventeenth Mickey miraculously survives one of his horrible adventures and returns to his quarters to find that an eighteenth Mickey was printed while he was gone and presumed dead.

Mickey 17 has some standout structural problems that make it hard to get into initially.

The most frustrating aspect of Mickey 17 is the decision to employ a non-linear narrative that stymies its growth. The film begins with the titular incarnation of Mickey ready to once again face death as he has fallen into an underground tunnel on the Niflheim surface and is seemingly about to be eaten by a swarm of giant, furry bugs referred to as Creepers, and then a voice-over guided rewind takes the story back to the beginning to explain the circumstances. Instead of naturally playing out, the first act registers more as an exposition dump, and one is left waiting for the movie to catch up with itself. It’s never boring – as it’s consistently funny, you’re invited to learn about a strange future with wild new technologies, and it clearly establishes the stakes – but it’s also never as compelling as it should be because of an imbalance between telling and showing.

This issue persists after we finally catch up with Mickey and see him survive his encounter with the Creepers and make his way back to the human colony. When Mickey 17 discovers that Mickey 18 has been printed, it initiates another flashback sequence that explains why duplicates are a serious problem and that the punishment is the execution of both/all versions. Again, it’s never not entertaining, as it offers a taste of what registers as a cool bit of futuristic true crime, but it also considerably hurts the movie’s pacing.

Once the story really gets going, Mickey 17 is a delight.

Mickey 17 creates its own considerable hump to climb over, but once it gets moving, it’s delightful. Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 have divergent personalities (the former nebbish and timid, the latter angry and aggressive) that add an extra spice to their pains to not be exposed as duplicates, but their efforts ultimately find them embroiled in what feels like Bong Joon-ho’s Starship Troopers. Kenneth Marshall’s despotic ideology, zealotry, and media obsession sees him view the Creepers as disgusting lower lifeforms that must be exterminated if the humans are going to properly colonize Niflheim, but the Mickeys and Nasha come to understand a vital truth about the alien species, and they fight to make that truth heard.

The satire is far from subtle – but let’s not forget that this is coming from the same filmmaker that brought us the brilliant Snowpiercer. Mark Ruffalo steps on the gas a touch too hard, but Toni Collette nails it (espousing the wonder of sauce as the pinnacle of civilization), and they are also the tone setters for the movie’s purposeful cold and weird examination of class warfare, colonization, and modern fascism opposite the proletariat protagonists. It’s macabre, goofy, and has something to say.

Bong Joon-ho has created another weird and beautiful sci-fi world.

The film is clunky when it comes to introducing audiences to its world, but the rendering of the world itself is remarkable. Tremendous production and costume design aesthetically contrast the lives of the rich and powerful compared to the grunts of the Niflheim colony, and the technological visions are wonderful and odd – from the sleek printer that creates new Mickeys (the little stutters in the process are a particularly funny touch) to the hard drives on which an expendables consciousness is stored (a literal brick). The dual performance is executed flawlessly, with proper credit due to Robert Pattinson for a pair of dynamic turns as Mickey 17 and Mickey 18, and the creature design of the Creepers finds an ideal middle ground between horrible and adorable.

Because of its structural issues, Mickey 17 may be a movie that some find it hard to get into, but it’s also the kind of movie that will age well thanks to its immense personality, the standout style of Bong Joon-ho, and its timely satire. It’s definitely not on the same level of excellence as Parasite, but it’s still excellent in its own way.