Mickey 17, Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho’s follow up to the Best Picture winning, Parasite, was always going to come with high expectations and this one came with a high budget as well. The hook is probably the simplest of his films to get on board with. Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), desperate and in deb,t agrees to become an ‘expendable’, a person who will do the most dangerous and life-threatening tasks and, if he dies, he gets reprinted to do it all over again. Mickey serves a ship led by Kenneth Marshall, a rich megalomaniac who leads a group of his most loyal followers (who wear red hats with white text) to colonize a snow planet. On the ship, Mickey also meets Nasha, a beautiful woman who accepts every version of him.
The film is covering a myriad of topics that Bong has dealt with in depth before. Ethics, capitalism, Fascist leaders, colonization, environmentalism and religious fervour are all part of Bong’s cinematic ethos. A lot of these discussions revolve around the figure of Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) along with his wife, Ylfa, who shows that she may be the most intelligent but is just as weird as him. As the leaders on the ship, what they say goes and they exemplify what is wrong with having leaders with the privilege they have. The power couple in this precarious situation restrict food access, sexual activity and control exactly how much everyone works. As a result, Mickey gets the worst end of the stick because everyone in charge of him feels it is ethical to subject him to whatever weird or torturous situation they want. Every time anything goes wrong, he is expected to fix it no matter how risky it might be. When other people are hurt, he is blamed for not sacrificing himself for them. Now this may sound dour and it is… but Bong is able to bring a strong amount of levity to the story through a few key elements, especially through Pattinson’s performance as Mickey.
Pattinson’s range of projects make him perfect for a role like this. For one, he is expected to absolutely disappear into this character and he does that effectively through his combination of mannerisms, his voice and facial expressions. When you look at him, he feels like Mickey, not Bruce Wayne or Cedric from Harry Potter. He has the screen prescience and charisma of a star lead. (His work with The Batman surely helped with that image but with how much screen time he takes up, he engages us in every situation) He also embodies this Average Joe, working guy. He never lets his posh British accent or any other part of his performance hints to him being misplaced. He is perfectly confused, happy and in pain as he goes about his work. But being Robert Pattinson he also has the looks that explains why Nasha is instantly drawn to him because… well… he is very handsome. To find all these qualities in one actor was probably an impossible task but Pattinson works perfectly for it.
The rest of the cast is also very good. Naomi Ackie was the right amount of charm and rebellion for her character. Mark Ruffalo is perfectly dispisable and almost uncanny in his resemblance of certain detestable political figures. He still brings his own spirit to the character. He is never just doing an impression of Trump or any other figure who he might resemble. Toni Collette fits well as the brains behind Marshall, but also goes along with his stupidity when it allows her to indulge in her obsessions. Steven Yeun is probably the most underutilized as his best scene has him one upped by the commitment Pattinson is displaying. He still is quite funny and fits this arrogant character really well.
This cast, while maybe not as united in tone as some other masterful ensembles, is able to make their unique approach to each character collide in quite funny ways. The visual storytelling does that really well as this has a much needed reliance on visual comedy that so many streaming comedies and even the funniest compilations on TikTok or YouTube cannot match. A lot of this comes from the narrative surprise, the charm of characters mannerisms and little jokes in the background from either choices in the costumes, production design and design of the creatures we find on the Ice Planet. It makes this very critical film of our current economic, political and environmental state very fun. Perhaps, at the end of the day, one might walk away from this film with a sense that it was a popcorn flick. But I think the film is giving a message of hope to all of us. Lots of bad things happen to the characters in the film, especially Mickey as he must endure dying often and be forced to come right back.
Like Asteroid City from Wes Anderson, Mickey 17 is using a story, a medium that can in theory live forever to show that our lives are valuable because they end. If we had everything we ever wanted, then what would we get out of life. Life might often seem miserable but Mickey represents a person who can literally go to hell and back and still be happy with the loving people he has in his life and knows he can be happy despite everything he might encounter.
Mickey 17 is available in theatres now.
