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Mickey 17 Movie Review

Mickey 17 is a 2025 science fiction black comedy film directed by Bong Joon Ho and starring Robert Pattinson. It’s a very annoying, silly movie.

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“Our entire life is a punishment“

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A disposable employee is sent on a human expedition to colonize the ice world Niflheim. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. This is the first Bong Joon Ho movie since ‘Parasite’ and it’s among his weakest efforts so far. It’s pretty much a mixture of ‘Snowpiercer’ and ‘Okja’ in its tone and subject matter, proving to us once again that this director is pretty much repeating himself.

Science fiction and comedy very rarely mix well together and this is yet another example of this mash of genres not working properly. As a big SF fan, I was very disappointed with Bong’s very slight plotting and underdeveloped themes. The world building itself is undercooked. The ice planet is intriguing at first and those creatures are actually quite fascinating and unique as we have rarely seen isopods at this capacity before.

With that being said, those creatures were just there for the director to make a message about animal rights. We get it – harming animals is bad. Capitalism is terrible, we get it. How corporations treat their workers is also atrocious, again we get it. This director is incapable of making a film that is subtle in any shape or form. His messaging is so direct and so on-the-nose (those speeches are so bad) that it is almost insulting for any adult viewer with a brain.

Mickey 17 is worth seeing almost solely for Robert Pattinson’s dual performance. These are two of the actor’s best roles to date and it will be interesting seeing where he goes next from here. Both of the Mickeys are clearly very different, thus their dynamic was a lot of fun to follow. The protagonist’s voice got on my nerves pretty quickly and I found the narration in the first act overwhelming and insufferable, but at least Pattinson was very charismatic and memorable in both roles that were also solidly developed.

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Others fared much worse. Well, Naomi Ackie was quite good as his girlfriend. There is a ‘Challengers’– reminiscent subplot with the three engaging in romance together, but that was only one sequence and I wished that we got more of that interesting development. Steven Yeun is very good as he always is, but his role was too small and he needed more screen time to shine.

The less said about Mark Ruffalo, the better. This is yet another one of his over-the-top roles that reminded me of his turn in ‘Poor Things’. In that film he was fine to me, but here he annoyed me immensely. What was even more frustrating was reading all the reviews comparing this character to Trump when Bong himself confirmed that’s not the case. Toni Collette is always terrific at anything that she does, but this is sadly one of her more forgettable roles.

Mickey 17 looks fine. The creatures are again cool and authentic-looking. The icy landscapes on that planet are also aesthetically pleasing. With that being said, this movie had the budget of over 100 million, which simply shows us once again the American money laundering that is going on while making these blockbusters. You cannot see that budget anywhere on the screen.

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As for the score, it’s not memorable at all. Bong’s directing is also pedestrian. The film is overlong at over two hours, and thus not engaging at all. It was way too literal in its numerous characters, subplots and silly situations. The humor did not work for me as it was overly broad and goofy. I get what he was trying to do here, which is bring back the madcap flicks of yesteryear, but he failed to execute it properly.