If Bong Joon Ho ever announced he’s making a movie about sentient office chairs overthrowing their human overlords while still managing to incorporate subtle political and capitalism commentary, I wouldn’t so much as bat an eye. This man is so incredibly unhinged and “Mickey 17,” released March 7, is proof of that. Ho thrives on chaos, and this movie is no exception. In essence, it’s a buddy film where the “buddy” in question is your own homicidal clone, and a dark satire about capitalism, death, and… alien caterpillars with better morals than humans? No yeah, that tracks.
The movie starts with Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) making the kind of life choice that could only be made by a desperate man: signing up to be an “Expendable” on a space colony mission. What does this entail you might ask? He gets all the worst, most dangerous jobs, dies horribly, and then just gets 3D printed back into existence with all his memories still intact. It’s basically late capitalism taken to its logical extreme; why protect workers when you can just replace them?
But then things get even weirder, if that’s even possible. Mickey 17, the seventeenth clone of himself, gets sent out to capture a weird caterpillar-like alien called a creeper, falls into an ice pit, and is rescued by the creatures instead of, you know, dying like usual. By the time he makes it back to the ship, Mickey 18 has already been printed, and let’s just say this new clone is not down to share his job, his meals, or his existence.
I mean this in the best way possible, but Ho was so unhinged for this movie. It’s not just that the concept is peculiar and bizarre, it’s that he fully commits to it. Instead of giving us a traditional sci-fi thriller, which, let’s be honest, nobody really expected in the first place, he throws in office politics, Pattinson vs. Pattinson conflict, existential dread, then a dash of some corporate dystopia for good measure.
Take the colony’s leader, Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), for example. This man is comically evil. He literally tries to execute Mickey 17 at dinner, right in the middle of a meal, like that’s just a normal HR policy (although I wouldn’t be surprised if it was). The Mickeys, instead of dealing with their cloning crisis in any logical way, resort to petty sabotage and switch places to keep themselves alive.
Pattinson is so good at playing characters who look like they haven’t slept in weeks, and here, we get two of them. Lucky us. You’ve got Mickey 17 who is the tired, morally conflicted one, and then you’ve got Mickey 18 who is genuinely just pure clone rage. Watching them interact is both ridiculous and kind of genius.
Naomi Ackie’s Nasha is one of the only in this movie with a functioning brain, which makes her romance with Mickey 17 all the more endearing. She’s out here handling security, managing an intergalactic clone crisis, and still making time to deal with her emotionally unstable boyfriend(s).
Overall, “Mickey 17” is unhinged in the best possible way. It’s weird, it’s darkly funny, it has Pattinson arguing with himself in a spaceship hallway, it’s everything you could want from a sci-fi movie that refuses to be normal. Ho once again proves that he’s incapable of making a boring movie, and honestly? I love that for him. Never change Bong Joon Ho.
