Mickey 17 (2025) - Bong Joon Ho’s dark dystopia is strangely comforting to watch

Credit: allocine.fr

It’s striking how such a dark concept can be so delightful. On a human expedition to colonize the ice world Niflheim, a self-proclaimed loser, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), unintentionally signs up to be an “expendable” – in other words, someone who can be killed off as much as needed for the benefit of scientific progress and experimentation. Everything about it is grotesque, from the graphic reactions Mickey has to experimental meat or Niflheim’s pathogens, through to the lip-licking dictator Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) who has failed as a politician on Earth and decided to try elsewhere. Based on the Edward Ashton novel, in which Mickey only makes it to 7, Bong Joon Ho has masterfully reprised and developed a story that recognises both the state of modern politics and social interaction, and the inherent need for a bit of comedy to balance it.

Pattinson is on top form as Mickey in all of his (re)iterations – when 17 is lost down a crevice to Niflheim’s natural habitants, nicknamed the Creepers (Bong Joon Ho wanted a mix between an armadillo and a croissant for the design), he expects to die and be reprinted. Instead, the Creepers save him, and so 17 manages to make his way back to base camp, where alas, 18, a far more aggressive, murderous version of original Mickey, has already been printed. Knowing Multiples (doubled clones) are sent to their deaths, both versions battle in a bid to stay alive, but are inevitably forced to work together to protect the Creepers from the ongoing threat of mankind. The latter plot point is rudimentary enough – everywhere humanity seems to pollute, only to treat natives like aliens. Ruffalo’s caricatural dictator falls almost too far into satire – fake teeth, apparent ineptitude all while remaining at his core evil, Napoleonic confidence. It’s enough to garner an eye roll or two, not least with his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette) at his arm, whispering sweet nothings to him halfway through a public speech. It all feels a bit too familiar, though Ruffalo and Collette are a great pair onscreen. Steven Yeun meanwhile is excellent as Mickey’s friend on the run from a murderous loan shark (the very reason why they both signed up to Niflheim’s expedition in the first place), in equal parts vulnerable and disgustingly selfish. Naomi Ackie and Anamaria Vartolomei offer up solid performances as security agents who grapple over Mickey (both 17 and 18) – there’s a fantastically awkward threesome scene reminiscent of Michael Fassbender snogging himself in Alien: Covenant, though Pattinson is arguably more alarmed than the latter.

Mickey’s constant reprinting reminds us we are disposable, a concept difficult to ingest/digest – human condition aside, there’s something to be said about the relentless worker who day in day out must suffer the (corporate) grind. Mickey does it with a smile on his face – are we complicit, then, contributing to our own misery? We seem to be lost in a flourish of bureaucracy (Mickey becomes an expendable because he doesn’t read the terms and conditions) and unyielding repetition, destined to become versions upon version of ourselves with very little personal time to stash aside. What is the path forward, then? Mickey 17 doesn’t give much of an answer – it laughs at itself, and there’s also something strangely warming about the tone of the film when everything, aesthetic included, is so bleak. I don’t know – maybe it’s how cute the Creepers end up being.