Bong Joon-ho's Mickey 17 stars Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Anamaria Vartolomei and Holliday Granger. It's a film that starts of feeling very big scale with its layers of foundation for a years-long story about how Mickey hated his life, had no purpose in his existence and so decided to sky rocket into space to become an "expendable." Not like Sylvester Stallone or Jason Statham though, rather himself, again and again. The purpose of said "expendables" is basically to be test subjects as humans learn about their new planet's atmosphere and the potential danger that it can pose to our simple Earth-centered immune systems. So Mickey gets plopped out into the open and vaccines are worked on based on how much blood he coughs up or how easily his body disintegrates. If he dies, he's just reprinted with his memories in tact. But the Mickeys evolve, not each one is the same.
After all that backstory is established, we return back to where the movie started- with the seventeenth incarnation of Mickey on the brink of death, and nobody attempting to help his situation because why should they? He'll just be regenerated again anyway. It's already happened seventeen times so what's one more? He's left for dead but ends up being saved by the furry croissant-shaped elephant-ish creatures that inhabit the planet and he returns back to his station only to find Mickey 18 in his room. Unlike Mickey 17 who is timid, mild mannered and a bit of a coward; Mickey 18 is cold, unfeeling and a bit of a psycho.
From that point onwards after the two try to kill each other as they're in violation of the multiples rule, the film sort of stops as we spend the majority of it in the more intimate environments of the space colony that humans have built, and it ends up feeling very small in scale- almost indie like. Said colony is led by the wonderfully quirky duo of Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette- both of whom feel like parodies of our more eccentric world leaders and it's here that Bong Joon-ho really leans in to the rather obvious 80s sci-fi B-movie influence that Mickey 17 has, with Ruffalo and Colette being the poster children for it.
Ruffalo with his big white teeth feels like he was torn straight from the conceptual pages of The Fifth Element and Toni Collette is his doting alpha wife who is the little devil in his ear. The pair are gross and grimey in all the best ways as this colony's dictators and the ever-apparent political satire of a Bong Joon-ho film breathes through them. There's some great commentary on the greed of humans and the demonization of those whose lands we colonize for our own gain, and brings into question just who the real aliens, and the real threats are. Said native inhabitants are intimidating but sympathetic, and show how no matter our race, shape or resemble to French pastries, we aren't so different after all.
Robert Pattinson is excellent as his two Mickey alter-egos that employ a sort of angel and/or devil on your shoulder dynamic, but they ultimately learn how to get along after almost having a drug-induced threesome with their now joined lover Nasha, played by Naomi Ackie. Ackie has some stand out scenes as the no-nonsense soldier who cares for Mickey and the native inhabitants of the planet deeply. Not unlike everybody else, she rejects the authority but actually has the guts to say it out loud to their faces.
Steven Yeun is also in this movie but past the backstory, doesn't really find his place in the goings on of the unfolding events, Anamaria Vartolomei as Kai briefly tries to get into Mickey's pants, Holliday Granger is a bit of a voice of reason during an awkward dinner where Mickey almost dies (again) and the rest are faded into the background as nameless detectives, police officers and pilots.
Ultimately if you know the director's work then Mickey 17 is pretty much what you'd expect from a Bong Joon-ho space movie, but that's not to minimise just how good it actually is. All of the elements you'd expect from the Oscar winner are present, it's an oddball sci-fi that'll certainly find it's audience in the more niche markets and feels like it's destined to become a cult classic. Upon first leaving the cinema, I couldn't decide if it was brilliant or just very good but the more I think about and process it, it feels like it could come to be considered a masterpiece if it isn't already, or at least half of one. It's desperately in need of a second viewing when it officially hits big screens on March 7th.
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