Mickey 17 (Theaters)
The successes and shortcomings of Bong Joon-ho’s follow-up to 'Parasite'—and what its impending release might troublingly signify
What’s it about? Mickey 17, known as an "expendable," goes on a dangerous journey to colonize an ice planet.
Who it’s for? Robert Pattinson fans, admirers of Director Bong’s lighter and wackier side, sci-fi lovers who appreciate detailed world-building, if you like dark comedies
Who should avoid? Those expecting the Swiss-watch perfection of Parasite, if you dislike tonal whiplash, if you dislike over-the-top performances
Watch if you like: Okja, Snowpiercer, Edge of Tomorrow, Moon, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
News and Notes:
Premiered at Berlinale 2025
Released today
Schmear’s Verdict: A vividly crafted and ambitious sci-fi adventure, Mickey 17 brims with Bong Joon-ho’s signature imagination and humor, even if its scattershot execution keeps it from reaching his greatest heights.
How do you like your Bong Joon-ho movies? Do you prefer his deep, dark, morally ambiguous investigations into the soul (Memories of Murder, Mother) or his wacky, mordant fables (Okja, Snowpiercer)? Parasite won Best Picture in 2019 by being an apotheosis of Bong’s impulses and tonalities.
He follows up that masterpiece with the impressive yet frustrating Mickey 17, a vivid, hard sci-fi adventure that, with its overt messaging, broad humor, and moral simplicity, plays like Bong Joon-ho for kids. Even as this messy film falls short of his best work, it still represents some of the most inventive big-budget filmmaking ($150M reported) in years.
Robert Pattinson stars as Mickey Barnes, a woebegone loser who signs up to become an “expendable” on an off-world mission to escape a nightmarish loan shark. Because he can respawn (or be reprinted) after every death, Mickey is essentially a test guinea pig. There’s plenty of morbid humor to be mined from witnessing the fatal travails of this Job-like figure.
The mission is led by a cartoonish, failed politician turned autocrat (Mark Ruffalo) looking for a fresh start on a new planet. Ruffalo, toothy and tanned, doing a spin on his Poor Things role by way of Donald Trump, is initially a riot, but his broadness wears thin fast—just like his one-note wife, played by Toni Collette. They remain surface-level caricatures, making them two of the film’s weakest elements.
Technically, Mickey 17 excels. Bong, working with DP Darius Khondji, fills every shot with excitement. The film sweats the small stuff—the attention to detail, especially in the interplay of high and low technology, is wondrous. The same goes for the costuming and even the food the characters eat. It’s world-building on par with the tactile craft James Cameron put into his movies before he went full Na’vi on us.
Which makes it all the more disappointing that such proficiency is applied to a film so frantic and scattershot. The bravura set pieces stand out more for their daffiness than their impact. Between Bong’s filmmaking prowess and Pattinson’s go-for-broke performance, to see Mickey 17 focus on being a bedroom farce rather than a probing sci-fi epic is genuinely puzzling.
By the final act, whatever subtlety remained is discarded in favor of a loud, exhausting, convoluted ending. While still much better staged and imagined than most blockbuster finales, it succumbs to a similar hecticness. It winds up as simple as Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, yet not as stirring—and almost 20 minutes longer (this clocks in at 137 minutes).
For all my gripes, this is still in the 90th percentile of big blockbuster filmmaking, at least in the last ten years. And that, of course, has to do with the technical aspects, but also the emotionality Bong Joon-ho is after—something Robert Pattinson manages to convey. It’s humanizing to see such a dashing actor earnestly throw himself into a silly role. It allows for an accessing of the heart that’s far too rare in large-scale moviemaking these days.
I really want this film to succeed, but right now, it’s tracking at just $18 million for its opening weekend off a $150 million budget. That’s scary. It suggests that big-budget experiments with auteur directors like Bong could evaporate just as quickly as they arrived.
As I write this, I’m working through some complicated feelings and frustrations. While Mickey 17 is flawed in many respects, I don’t want it to become the strawman for a further retreat from ambitious filmmakers paired with large budgets. This isn’t top-tier Bong, but on the other hand, it’s exactly the kind of film that should be attempted more often.
I’m loath to be harsh on the film—though my criticisms are truthful—because I sense that Mickey 17’s impending flop is going to make it an unfair scapegoat for studios turning away from funding master filmmakers.
We’ve got an Alejandro Iñárritu film starring Tom Cruise and PTA’s Leonardo DiCaprio project—both, like Mickey 17, Warner Bros. films. Credit to them for making these, but I’m pretty terrified of the backslide if they don’t work financially. Mickey 17 seems like the harbinger of what’s to come, and that would be a far greater disappointment than the film itself.
