Yes, Robert Pattinson Dies A Lot In Mickey 17. But The Movie's Most Interesting Take On Death Doesn't Get Explored Nearly Enough

SPOILER WARNING: The following article gives away a few crucial plot details from Mickey 17. If you have not yet seen the new sci-fi movie, it’s not like we can just print out a new version of you that wipes the memory of these spoilers clean. So, proceed with caution as you read on.

I consider Mickey 17 to be my favorite 2025 movie so far. Similar to Eric Eisenberg’s review of Mickey 17, I think it boasts a highly inventive concept – based on author Edward Ashton’s dystopian novel, Mickey 7 – a dazzling performance by Robert Pattinson as both the title hero and his more ill-tempered clone, and an irresistibly zany satirical tone that could only be perfected by an artist as talented as Bong Joon Ho. However, I must admit that I would not call it a wholly perfect movie.

The Academy Award-winning South Korean filmmaker's follow-up to his Best Picture Oscar winner, 2019’s Parasite, touches on many interesting topics, ranging from the socioeconomic to the philosophical. As much as I admire its approach to the former, I would have loved to see it go a bit deeper into the latter, especially in regards to one particular theme that I found remarkably fascinating but largely underdeveloped in Mickey 17. Allow me to explain…

I Wanted A Deeper Exploration Of Its "Dead Forever" Theme

The main focus of Mickey 17 is Robert Pattinson’s title character (whom the actor adopted a Steve-O-esque voice to play), whose role as an “expendable” requires him to undergo grueling tasks that often prove fatal, but on the promise that he will be “reprinted” in a new body with the same memories each time. Things get tricky when he is assumed to be dead and returns to find a concurrent duplicate of himself, which is illegal, meaning that one of them has to die. However, neither Mickey 17 nor Mickey 18 wants to be the one to ensure there will be a single Mickey because they both fear the finality of death.

Now, that really had my attention: a man who has been resurrected from the dead on multiple occasions and now, for the first time, is forced to confront a permanent fate. A concept like this raises so much creative potential that could have been explored more frequently, perhaps by showing the Mickeys amicably discussing their concerns, but it is only acknowledged a couple of other times, most substantially when Mickey 18 admits he is afraid of death before sacrificing himself to kill Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo). By the end, the film’s exploration of death in a time when it can be avoided feels like a bit of an afterthought. Then again, there must not have been enough time to dedicate to that topic with so many other ideas competing for screen time. On that note...

I Think Mickey 17 Struggles To Balance Its Many Ideas

Any fan of Bong Joon Ho’s movies knows that the filmmaker loves to incorporate a deeper message hidden beneath the story, which he has demonstrated masterfully in titles like 2014’s Snowpiercer, which is a classist allegory disguised as an action-packed post-apocalyptic thriller. However, with Mickey 17, the filmmaker goes for a more overt satirical approach to a wide variety of themes, including religious fanaticism, xenophobia, fascism, drug trafficking, the moral complexities of cloning, and probably a few more that I might not have even caught on my own.

I absolutely applaud Bong for crafting such a bizarre and hilarious film that attempts to attack so many frighteningly relevant issues. Yet, I also believe that the film could have been even more powerful with a more central focus on one topic, much like the filmmaker’s previous satirical outings. Bong told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show that he believes Mickey 17 is a film about the human condition, and I certainly see where he was coming from, but I also cannot help but feel that said theme gets buried like Mickey clone.

On top of its struggle to balance so many topics at once, I also think Mickey 17 has a few characters who get the short end of the stick. For instance, I agree with Alexandra Ramos that Steven Yeun’s Timo deserved a larger role, and I also believe that Kai Katz (Anamaria Vartolomei), who has a crush on Mickey, is criminally underused. Honestly, though, I think all of these issues are still barely a detriment to what I predict will be regarded as a beloved sci-fi movie classic one day.