MICKEY 17 : Tuesday 11th March 2025.

I saw the M Rated 'MICKEY 17' earlier this week and this Sci-Fi black comedy film is Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Bong Joon-ho, whose prior feature film credits take in his debut with 'Barking Dogs Never Bite' in 2000 and then the likes of 'The Host' in 2006, 'Mother' in 2009, 'Snowpiercer' in 2013 his English language debut, 'Okja' in 2017 and the critically lauded and multi-award winning 'Parasite' in  2019. This film is based on the 2022 novel 'Mickey7' by Edward Ashton, and saw its World Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in mid-February, before being theatrically released in South Korea on 28th February and later Stateside and here in Australia last week. It has garnered generally favourable critical reviews, and has so far grossed US$59M from a production budget of US$118M. 

It is 2054, and Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his best friend Timo (Steven Yeun) are financially well and truly broke after a failed business venture that saw them borrowing money to open up a chain of macaron stores. Unable to repay a murderous loan shark, the pair decide to flee Earth by signing up as crew for a spaceship that leaves our little blue planet to colonise the planet Niflheim, a journey that will take them four-and-a half years. Timo signs up as a shuttle pilot and Mickey as the spaceship's only 'Expendable'. Using Earth-banned technology to clone Mickey and restore his memories, Mickey is treated as disposable, given lethal assignments that mere mortals would never dare contemplate, and then reprinted after death - time after time after time. 

During the voyage, a romance develops between Mickey and security agent Nasha (Naomi Ackie). Some four years pass and the spaceship eventually arrives at snow bound and wintery Niflheim. Using Mickeys 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 the spaceship's scientists finally develop a vaccine against Niflheim's air borne pathogens. Mickey 17, the seventeenth version of Mickey, is given the task of capturing one of the planets giant woodlice-like alien creatures (termed 'creepers') for scientific analysis. In doing so, he falls into a deep fissure in the ice, beyond the reach of Timo, who leaves and reports Mickey 17's death. However, the creepers arrive en masse and collectively push Mickey 17 out of the fissure, for him to return almost unscathed to the spaceship.

Mickey 17 returns to the spaceship, cleans himself up and flops on to his bed only to be greeted by the very recently printed Mickey 18 (Robert Pattinson), who is much more confident and aggressive. As the expedition's leader, twice failed politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), has vowed to kill any 'Multiples' (simultaneously living clones), Mickey 18 tries to kill Mickey 17, who resists and is then interrupted by Timo. Mickey 18 then tries to kill Timo, but is interrupted and leaves with Nasha, who believes she is leaving with Mickey 17. Mickey 17 in the meantime is brought to dinner with Marshall, his wife Ylfa (Toni Colette), and security guard Kai Katz (Anamaria Vartolomei). Mickey 17 suffers severe pain after being served experimental meat and being treated with experimental painkillers. Kai intervenes to stop Marshall from putting a bullet in his head. Kai later woos Mickey 17, who flees.

Nasha learns of the Mickeys and accepts them both. When Mickey 17 tells Mickey 18 what happened over dinner with the Marshall's, an enraged Mickey 18 decides to kill Marshall at a public ceremony commemorating a huge chunk of Niflheim rock. Chaos ensues when two baby creepers emerge from the rock that had just moments before been lasered in half. Mickey 17 arrives and captures creeper Zoco, but creeper Luko jumps onto Marshall and is shot to pieces by Kai and other security agents. Nasha stops Mickey 18 from killing Marshall, who discovers the Multiples. Mickey 17, Mickey 18 and Nasha are arrested, and locked up. Thousands of creepers arrive outside the ship, calling out to Zoco.

Locked up in their respective cells Mickey 17's description of the creepers helping him escape from the fissure makes Nasha realise they are not hostile. Timo tries to kill Mickey 17 to satisfy the loan shark who has seemingly caught up with him even on Niflheim, but Nasha and Mickey 18 overpower him. The Mickeys and Nasha are brought to Marshall, who wants to exterminate all the creepers. Marshall destroys Mickey's stored memories, while Nasha saves Zoco from being executed by Ylfa. Marshall's assistant Preston (Daniel Henshall) persuades Marshall to task the Mickeys to compete in collecting creeper tails, which Ylfa wants one hundred of for making edible sauce, with the winner being allowed to live. The Mickeys are forced to wear remote-detonated bomb vests to ensure they comply with the instructions.

When the Mickeys are sent out into the frozen snow-bound wasteland surrounding the ship, they peacefully seek out the creepers' leader, which prompts Marshall to go outside himself with a security team and Preston ready to film the unfolding events for a live broadcast, and with the intention of personally killing all the creepers. Using a translation device manufactured by sympathetic scientist Dorothy (Patsy Ferran), Mickey 17 communicates with the creepers' leader, informing on Marshall's plan. The creepers' leader threatens to kill all humans, unless Zoco is returned alive and one human is killed to compensate for Luko's death.

Mickey 17 tells Nasha via camera to free Zoco. Nasha takes Ylfa hostage to ensure Zoco's release. Nasha releases Ylfa, who tries to kill Zoco, but Nasha again saves him. The security agents arrest Ylfa. Nasha returns Zoco to the creepers' leader, while Mickey 18 fights Marshall and detonates the bomb planted on his vest, killing himself and Marshall to fulfil the demand by the creepers' leader. Afterwards Ylfa commits suicide in a psychiatric ward, while Preston and other Marshall collaborators are imprisoned. An associate of the loan shark tries to kill Timo, but Timo manages to kill him. Nasha is later elected as a colony political leader. She presides over a groundbreaking ceremony on Niflheim where it is now spring time, where Mickey 17 (now to be known as 'Mickey Barnes') detonates the cloning device to symbolically end the Expendable programme, but not before he had a vision of a reprinted Ylfa and Marshall.

Director, Producer and Writer Bong Joon-ho has here delivered us a darkly comedic Sci-Fi satire set in the near future on some distant planet far far away that is a times absurdist, thought provoking, a social commentary, and an environmental essay while exploring the class divide and providing us with a bit of a creature feature too along the way. Robert Pattinson gives possibly a career best performance as the various Mickey's, ably supported by a scene chewing Mark Ruffalo channeling a certain POTUS and an equally on point Toni Collette serving up his unhinged yet domineering sauce loving wife. Visually the film looks the part too, but the plot meanders along and it overstays its welcome just a tad at a 137 minute run time, and I came out of the movie theatre feeling a little 'meh'!

'Mickey 17' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-