‘Mickey 17’ Review: Bong Joon Ho is BACK, Baby!
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From his earlier works like Memories of Murder and The Host, Bong Joon-ho has always encountered appreciation on the film festival circuit and among cinephiles. Still, as we all know, Bong became a bonified household name in 2020 when Parasite became a box office hit globally before making history at the Academy Awards, becoming the first international film to win Best Picture. Since Parasite, fans old and new have patiently anticipated the South Korean filmmaker's follow-up. Wait no longer because Mickey 17 is finally here in all its brilliant, hilarious, and spectacular glory.
Once again assembling a star-studded international cast, this time led by Robert Pattinson and supported by the likes of Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo, Mickey 17 takes place in 2054, when Earth has nearly reached its anthropogenic climax. Pattinson stars as Mickey Barnes, who chooses to join a colonizing expedition to a faraway planet called Niflheim after his aspirations of making macarons more popular than hamburgers on our planet go wholly awry and leave him severely indebted to a group of violent loan sharks. Ignoring the fine print of his contract, Mickey signs up to be an "expendable," essentially a human guinea pig used for scientists to understand what will/won't kill the colonizers heading to Niflheim. On the four-and-a-half-year journey it takes to get to the icy planet, Mickey undergoes a process that will restore his memories and amalgamate organic matter to reprint his body when he dies, a procedure that happens eighteen times throughout his experience.
Leading the expedition to Niflheim is a former U.S. senator, Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo), fully leaning into a combination of Donald Trump and Benito Mussolini, just as foolish but with bigger veneers in his mouth. Marshall is hyped time and time again by his (much brighter but possibly more dangerous) wife, Ylfa, played by Collette. The couple have managed to gather roughly half of the expedition with a virtually religious fanaticism, while others (including Mickey) remain speculative. Mickey's only allies on the journey are his shady friend and former business partner, Timo (Yeun), and a newfound romantic flame, the fierce and commanding Nasha (Ackie), who helps him pass the doldrums of his new life with much emotional support and sexual entertainment.
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During one of Mickey's explorations into the unforgiving landscape of his new home planet, Timo leaves him behind under the impression that his buddy is on the road to his eighteenth death, but a group of creatures native to Niflheim –– coined by the colonizers as "Creepers" –– end up saving him from another gruesome ending. First appearing as hazardous beasts, the Creepers actually turn out to be endearing: cooing and squeaking in their own unique language, communicating their sense of communal harmony. Their rescue mission turns out to be disastrous for Mickey, who has already been reprinted back at the colony's headquarters. Now, Mickys 17 and 18 both exist, entirely illegal within the confines of Marshall's twisted utopian vision of the new outpost, setting both copies up for catastrophe.
Based on the Edward Ashton novel Mickey 7, Bong's interpretation finds the director returning to the science-fiction register interspersed throughout his varied filmography for the first time since 2017's Okja but on an even more expansive scale. The sullen grey interiors of the colony's base are contrasted with the endless white landscapes of Niflheim. Bombastic set pieces oscillate from gross-out dinners gone wrong to an extraordinary final showdown featuring thousands of Creepers. The director totally harnesses his worldwide recognition to make a film bigger in scale and vision than ever before in Mickey 17.
The film remains fully grounded in Bong's ongoing explorations of social inequity and the power dynamics at play in institutions across the globe, albeit with less refinement than Parasite, a film much more interested in reality. While characters in the movie are constantly asking our protagonist, "Mickey, what is it like to die?" we come to understand that his grueling existence never allows him to truly live; his sentience has been whittled down to the labor he can produce, as blatantly as his title as an expendable suggests. The disparity between the colonizers themselves and their overlords makes itself clear through their living conditions: the underlings eat grey sludge on a strict caloric intake, while Marshall and Ylfa live with the same privilege they had back on Earth, particularly through the latter's kooky obsession with sauce-making.
Onto the performances in Mickey 17 because Bong's screenplay gives nearly every character an abundance of material to work with. Like with his voiceover in the English dub of The Boy and the Heron, Pattinson overhauls his suave British accent to deliver a total transformation that meshes amazingly with the goofy melancholy of his character, such an improbable hero. Moreso, between Mickey 17 and 18, the actor serves subtle nuances that speak to the slight personality differences that develop each time he is reprinted. 18 has a sexy rage within him that is largely absent from the more submissive 17. Arguably in the most high-profile role of her career, Ackie's Nasha serves as another standout, embodying a specific authority and "no bullshit" attitude that elevates Mickey's status and serves as his safe place in engaging and charming ways. Never ones to disappoint, Collette and Ruffalo have a comedic chemistry that bounces back and forth between them, manifesting an insatiably corrupt power couple that mirrors many heads of state that we are unfortunately all too familiar with today.
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Delayed by 2023 strikes in Hollywood and then pushed back by distributor Warner Bros, many remained speculative of Mickey 17 in the lead-up to its premiere; naysayers worried that it could never live up to the legacy of Parasite. While Mickey 17 is an entirely different beast than its predecessor, audiences should absolutely be excited for this one, an outrageously delightful and entertaining experience with the endless potential to be a major box office hit when it enters wide theatrical release next month.
4.5/5
‘Mickey 17’ made its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on Saturday, February 15. Warner Bros. will release the movie in the United States on March 7.