March 10, 2025 · Watch the official trailer
Desperation has no class divide.
It's the central theory behind Academy award-winning director Bong Joon-ho’s latest film, “Mickey 17,” his third foray into cinema in the English language and his first film after 2019's “Parasite” became the first foreign language film to win Best Picture.
Adapted from the novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton, “Mickey 17” is an outlandish science fiction, dark comedy satire that exceeds the amount of bizarre absurdities audiences might not expect from a Bong Joon-ho film but maintains the filmmaker's unique critical perspectives on an almost like caste-like classification of people by assumed power through wealth.
The story follows Robert Pattinson as a man with nothing to lose who unwittingly signs up to become a perpetual crash test dummy for an interstellar exploration seeking a new planet, only to run afoul of the spaceship’s commander when the cloning technology used to replicate another Mickey goes awry.
Pattinson has been adept at confidently and engagingly portraying eccentric quirky characters in films like “The Lighthouse,” “The Batman,” and “Good Time.” His ability to create nearly identical, but just off centered characters from two different versions of his Mickey is one of the most entertaining and engaging entry points into the film and the subtle nuances of the character work that Pattinson displays far exceed typical science fiction or black comedy films in the genre.
While the physicality between his two Mickeys are nearly identical, distinct differences in the character affectations and tonality help differentiate 17 from 18 when they're on screen together and while clearly Pattinson is not acting against himself directly in each scene, the way that the layering of both Mickeys is constructed for their time together on screen really showcases just how difficult of a quality performance it is to pull off for Pattinson.
And yet, the veteran character actor absolutely nails the individuality in supposed replicants with a more submissive 17 and assertive 18 all while maintaining a terrific balance between the two characters.
His primary antagonist, Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo, is a maniacal avantgarde eccentric whose neuroses are only exacerbated by the obscene transgressive nature of his character lording over the crew members on his starship as his class status acquired through power and wealth have infected his mind almost to a neurotic psychosis.
The symbiotic relationship that Ruffalo masterfully forms with Toni Collette as his wife multiplies and exacerbates these motifs in Bong Joon-ho's screenplay and the absurdity with which Ruffalo and Collette's devotion to each other radiates off the screen creates the film's most side-splitting moments.
The strong yet small supporting ensemble cast also anchors down the character development in the narrative with Naomi Ackie’s Nasha serving as an emotional touchstone for both of Pattinson's Mickeys, while the increasingly peculiar turn Steven Yeun's character takes over the course of Mickey 17 helps both propel the narrative forward and make Mickey's backstory more complex.
The largely CGI heavy film does a solid job of blending the clearly digitized elements of the grandiose landscapes in outer space scenery of the film and contrasting interior sets help further visually capture the divide between the common crew member and the higher class on the spaceship.
These cinematic visuals are not of the same quality necessarily as 2019's masterful “Parasite” yet are very well in keeping with the more studio-driven blockbuster style that “Mickey 17” has throughout and the various iterations of the film’s strange caterpillar-esqie alien creatures, known as creepers, are executed far better than one might come to expect from the trailers.
Audiences may have difficulty connecting in with the overall film due to an exceptionally deliberate and slow narrative pace that drags in sections and provides almost too many opportunities for viewers to disconnect from Mickey's plight.
Yet while this is clearly not what one might expect an Oscar-winning auteur to deliver immediately after such a groundbreaking best picture win, “Mickey 17” is still exceptionally entertaining and rises far above many of its peers also showing currently on the big screen.
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