‘Mickey 17’ review: Bong Joon Ho unites with Robert Pattinson for quirky near-future drama

Dir/scr: Bong Joon Ho. US/South Korea. 2025. 137mins 

Six years after his Oscar-winning Parasite, writer-director Bong Joon Ho returns with a sci-fi dark comedy that echoes some of the most potent themes of his earlier films, albeit on a much bigger budget and narrative canvas. Robert Pattinson plays a mediocre everyman 30 years in the future who performs thankless, highly dangerous tasks for his fellow Earthlings as they all head to a distant planet — each time he dies, a replica of him is created who will carry out the same responsibilities. Recalling Snowpiercer’s dystopian unease, Okja’s oddball sense of humour and Parasite’s melancholy, Mickey 17 sometimes wobbles balancing its different tones. But what holds Bong’s eighth feature together is his palpable rage at humanity’s cruelty mixed with his compassion for a protagonist who cannot die – and, therefore, cannot truly live.

Pattinson’s performance gives this sci-fi picture its resonance

Playing as a Berlin Special Gala after its London premiere, this Warner Bros film opens in South Korea on February 28 then rolls out globally, releasing in the US on March 7 and the UK on April 18. Pattinson provides box-office oomph and is joined by Oscar-nominated actors Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo. But Bong’s third English-language feature is a proudly idiosyncratic affair that might struggle to connect with mainstream audiences with its portrait of a broken society barrelling toward catastrophe.  

In the year 2054, Mickey 17 (Pattinson) works on Niflheim, a remote colony run by the fanatical, bigoted tyrant Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo). Mickey’s unusual moniker comes from the fact that he is the 17th iteration of himself — needing to escape his debts on Earth, the not-so-bright young man hastily agreed to this off-planet job in which he will do risky tasks for the colony, his memories implanted in a new replica after each death. But when he falls into a deep crevasse and is presumed dead, Mickey manages to make it back to base — only to discover that his bosses have already ‘printed’ Mickey 18 (also Pattinson). This presents a problem because ‘multiples’ — two versions of the same replica — are illegal, meaning that the Mickeys need to hide the fact that they both exist.

Adapting Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel, Bong envisions a not-so-future civilisation in which an egomaniacal leader is embraced as a messiah and lowly plebeians such as Mickey are termed ‘expendables’, their only function to serve as disposable grunts and lab rats. In multiple films, Bong has focused on haves and have-nots, culminating in Parasite’s critical and commercial triumph, but Mickey 17 may be his bleakest exploration, with Mickey treated as practically subhuman. Whether it’s his backstabbing friend Timo (Yeun) or sympathetic coworker Kai (Anamaria Vartolomei), Mickey solicits the same nosy, insensitive question from those around him: “What’s it like to die?”

Washed-out cinematography from Darius Khondji (returning from Okja) and Fiona Crombie’s dingy production design expertly depict this colony as a lusciously grungy hellhole. Mickey’s only respite from this gloom comes from a love affair with Nasha (Naomi Ackie), a kindly Niflheim security officer who sees him as more than just a human guinea pig, although she has her flaws: when Mickey 18 arrives, she eagerly suggests the sexual possibilities of having two of the exact same boyfriend.

Where Mickey 17 conveys a dimbulb geniality, Mickey 18 has an antagonistic demeanour and loathes his wimpy predecessor. Fearful of discovery by the authorities, Mickey 18 thinks Mickey 17 should die — after all, they’re the same — but Mickey 17 argues that they are different enough that what makes him unique would be gone forever. Suddenly, Mickey’s existential malaise of dying again and again gets replaced by something even more despairing — the prospect of never coming back to life.

Eventually this snowy planet reveals a secret – the existence of indigenous critters, which Kenneth marginalises by calling them “creepers” and ordering their extermination. Longtime Bong fans will notice parallels in Mickey 17’s pro-environment, pro-animals stance with that of earlier works such as Okja. But the writer-director tends to oversell his political commentary, for instance making the power-mad Kenneth and his vile wife Ylfa (Collette) grating caricatures. (Not helping matters, Ruffalo juts out his jaw in such a way that his one-note performance is clearly meant to be a takedown of Donald Trump.)

But just as Mickey 17’s mad vision risks careening off its axis — such as when the comedy becomes too broad — this overstuffed but arresting film returns to its titular character’s dilemma, that of a common man toiling in a terrible job to benefit those with wealth and power. Pattinson has fun playing the Mickeys — one timid, one hostile — but it’s his performance as Mickey 17 that gives this sci-fi picture its resonance. Dying over and over, our hero just wants to make sure his soul survives; Pattinson locates it from the first frame.