Double The Trouble

Mickey 17
Apple Cinemas Xtreme
Hartford
March 11, 2025

I finally made it to the theater to see Mickey 17, a sci-fi comedy written and directed by Bong Joon Ho of Parasite fame.

For those who want a spoiler-free mini-review, Mickey 17 is a messy movie with many different layers that don’t always mesh perfectly together, and the third act betrays the more philosophical movie that comes before it for a (somewhat) standard action ending. Still, Robert Pattinson and Naomi Ackie are wonderful together, and the sci-fi premise is at least an entertaining thought experiment, even if it doesn’t all come together.

For those who want the skinny, read on.

FROM THIS POINT ON, THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

There’s A LOT happening in Mickey 17. At its core is a simple premise. Mickey (Robert Pattinson, proving that he is one of the great actors of the 21st century) is desperate to escape the long reach of a loan shark who will brutally murder him for being late on repaying his debt. So he decides to go as far away as possible — a distant planet where humanity is setting up a colony.

To secure his passage, Mickey agrees to take the one job that literally no one else wants: he agrees to be an Expendable. Basically, he signs up to be cloned, and then killed over and over again on incredibly dangerous missions. His memories are returned each time he dies, so he continues on with his life as if nothing happens. 

That by itself would be more than enough to fill a 90-minute sci-fi comedy, as the various Mickeys meet hilarious demises and ultimately learn some life-affirming message. But Mickey 17 runs two hours and 17 minutes, the result of several wrinkles and layers being thrown into the mix. 

For one, Mickey falls in love. He meets Nasha (Naomi Ackie, who keeps up with Pattinson in every scene), and we’re treated to a montage of the two spending time together. The relationship between Mickey and Nasha isn’t mere window-dressing for the movie, but instead one of several pillars which hold the plot up, and for my money, the one that works the best.

Then there’s the Creepers, indigenous beings who live on the planet humanity is seeking to colonize. The humans perceive the Creepers as a threat, until they save Mickey 17 from an icy grave. The rest of the humans continue to see them as dangerous, which sets several plot lines in motion …

… such as the birth of Mickey 18.

The humans presume that Mickey 17 was killed by the Creepers, so his replacement is printed. But two active copies of the same person is a huge taboo, with the penalty being execution and permanent deletion of memories, meaning permanent death.

The introduction of Mickey 18 also reveals that the clones are not perfect copies; they each have their own personalities. Where Mickey 17 is timid to a fault, Mickey 18 is a raving lunatic who is quick to jump to murder as a solution to his problems. It’s a fascinating sci-fi idea that unfortunately gets little development … because there are still more layers to the story.

The entire colonization enterprise is led by Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo, who looks like he’s having a blast chewing the scenery), an obvious Trump stand-in, down to the grandiose language and red hatted supporters; and his wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette, ditto). Marshall sees himself as a messianic figure destined to lead humanity into a new era while looking great in front of a camera while doing it. He’s the chief antagonist of the Creepers, and has a plan to destroy all of them once and for all.

Then Timo (Steven Yeun), Mickey’s business partner from Earth, reappears to bring the loan shark back into the story. Then everyone is getting high on a drug they shouldn’t be using. And then a new love interest pops in.

And then … well, you get the picture. 

While all of these plot elements keep Mickey 17 rushing forward at breakneck speed, it feels like the film jumps the track on two different occasions, and becomes something different. At first, it seems like Mickey 17 will be a humorous but introspective film, dealing with notions of life and death, memory and the morality of scientific endeavor, with a healthy dose of class consciousness. With the reveal of Mickey 18, the movie shifts gears into an odd couple comedy, with Timid Mickey and Hothead Mickey bickering about the best way to solve their problems. 

But the third act throws all of that out the window for a confrontation between the humans and the Creepers, because the humans have killed one baby Creeper and kidnapped another. These shifts aren’t so much jarring as they are simply incongruent. Each concept could have stood on its own as a movie.

Still, I consider Mickey 17 to be a noble attempt at bringing novel and interesting sci-fi ideas to the big screen, even if it doesn’t all gel together. I’m willing to give something unique the benefit of the doubt.

NEXT

Mickey 17 is playing at theaters in wide release.