Robert Pattinson Shines in Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 [Review]

Warning: The following review contains mild spoilers for Mickey 17.

If you want to tackle heavy real-world issues without scaring mainstream audiences away, dress them up in a genre wrapper. It’s a classic storytelling trick, and one that Mickey 17 director Bong Joon-ho has milked plenty of mileage out of over the years.

Pick any entry on South Korean filmmaker’s CV and you’ll see what I mean. Monster movie The Host? A sneaky skewering of US foreign policy. Dystopian action flick Snowpiercer? A social stratification takedown. Family-friendly fantasy Okja? An anti-capitalism satire. 2019 Best Picture-winning black comedy Parasite? A scathing indictment of class inequality. And so it goes for all Bong’s films – including Mickey 17.

Ostensibly, this is an OTT sci-fi/comedy built around the gimmick of Robert Pattinson playing dual roles. But really, it’s a vehicle for Bong to take aim at a bunch of subjects, both timely and timeless. And while he often lands wide of the mark, Pattinson’s powerhouse performance is just enough to get Mickey 17 over the line.

Based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey 7, Mickey 17 introduces us to down-on-his-luck schlub Mickey Barnes (Pattinson). Mickey’s an “Expendable”: someone who dies, gets cloned, and dies again on a daily basis as part of shady politician Kenneth Marshall’s (Mark Ruffalo) mission to colonize alien world Nilfheim. It’s a straightforward if brutal existence – until the latest Mickey is rolled out prematurely. Now, the old and new Mickey have to figure out how to live with each other, especially if they’re going to stand a chance of shutting down Marshall’s real plan for the Nilfheim colony.

So, basically, Mickey 17 is Snowpiercer meets Okja. As such, the film’s tonal shifts are more pronounced than what viewers only familiar with Parasite will likely expect. The sense that some actors are performing in a different movie – sometimes in the same scene – than their co-stars pervades proceedings. It’s not entirely on them, either. Bong’s screenplay lurches between slapstick pratfalls, jet black social commentary, genuine tenderness and more besides throughout Mickey 17‘s 137-minute runtime. It’s very much in keeping with Bong’s sensibilities as a storyteller, however, the effect is more jarring than usual here.

This is particularly the case where Mickey 17‘s political commentary is concerned. Bong leans hard on the broad humor in these moments, and it blunts whatever point he’s trying to make. Ruffalo’s attention-obsessed buffoon – whose line deliveries are clearly modelled on the idiosyncratic tics of a certain US President – and his equally cartoonish wife (portrayed by Toni Collette) are barely even caricatures. We instantly get that they’re so monstrously entitled that treating Mickey as disposable is par for the course, however, Bong never digs any deeper into their psyche.

Maybe that’s his way of saying that the Marshalls of this world aren’t actually that complex; they just do what they do because the world tells them they can. Regardless, it’s a bit one note. So is Mickey 17‘s half-hearted stab at anti-imperial sentiment, and its handwaving towards the racist undertones of populist movements. Fortunately, Bong handles Mickey himself with far greater nuance – helped enormously by a never better Pattinson. The English actor is equally engaging as the loveably gormless Mickey 17 and the borderline psychotic Mickey 18, selling both as distinct characters. His chemistry with on-screen other half Naomi Ackie is solid as well, despite the latter’s erratically scripted arc.

It’s a bit old hat, but it really is hard to imagine another actor in the Mickey role. Pattinson’s just that good at the humor, and more importantly, the pathos. As Mickey, he sketches out an affecting portrait of self-loathing and guilt, and what it means to forgive yourself and let go of life-long burdens – especially those you should’ve never shouldered to begin with. More than that, the deft way that Pattinson renders Mickey’s understandably complex relationship with death (he’s at once resigned to his fate and desperate for more time) lends Mickey 17‘s underlying meditation on mortality a heft its other thematic components lack.

At various points in the movie, people ask Mickey the same question: “How does it feel to die?” But the more time we spend with Mickey, the more we begin to understand what really matters is how it feels if you can’t. If the finite nature of life – the absence of do-overs, and the fear that comes with it – is what makes us human, what does that say about Mickey’s nigh-infinite existence? Had Bong devoted more screentime to this conundrum, Mickey 17 could’ve been something truly special. As it stands, the film we got just about works – but as an acting showcase, not a sly genre parable.

Mickey 17 is in cinemas now.