Oh, ‘Mickey 17,’ You’re Just Fine

What’s it like to die?

Mickey Barnes is well-acquainted with the answer — having died 16 times.

Directed by Bong Joon-Ho, “Mickey 17” is a dark comedy sci-fi film adapted from Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel “Mickey7.” 

Set in 2054, egomaniac politician Kenneth Marshall, played by Mark Ruffalo, hosts a mission to colonize the planet Niflheim in a bid for power after losing two recent elections.

Referred to as the “pure planet,” Niflheim is a frosty tundra underlaid with ice caverns and populated by grotesque aliens, nicknamed “creepers” by Marshall. With armadillo-like bodies and cuttlefish-esque faces, the aliens moan, bellow and scuttle across the snow with their multitudes of stubby legs.

Robert Pattinson leads as Mickey, a worker aboard Marshall’s ship, hired as an Expendable — a disposable lab rat for scientific probing. Subjected to radiation poisoning, experimental vaccines and extraterrestrial viruses, Mickey dies again and again, only to be reprinted after each death and put back to work. 

Though frequently posing the question of what it’s like to die, the film makes no substantial exploration into the subject matter. “Mickey 17” instead takes the easy route, repeatedly traipsing clumsily through banal complaints of being afraid of death.

Each Mickey clone receives a number beginning from one, until the lineage hits the titular 17. When Mickey 17 is falsely presumed dead, his 18th copy is still printed, violating the “Multiples” clause of the Expendable Program with the penalty of permanent death. 

Pattinson (“Twilight,” “The Batman”) simultaneously excels as the charmingly docile Mickey 17 and the aggressively violent Mickey 18. Carrying entire conversations between only himself, Pattinson’s voice is a stark departure from his regular tone, adopting a nasally, sweeter register. 

The two Mickeys contrast so differently they’re nicknamed “Mild” and “Habanero” by girlfriend and security agent Nasha Barridge while experimenting with a threesome. 

However, aside from the rudimentary nice versus mean dynamic, the two Mickeys are relatively indistinguishable in character. The movie saddles itself with an unfortunate underdevelopment of the coexisting clones anomaly, with neither Mickey feeling distinct enough as their own, well-rounded personality.

The ship, where a majority of the movie takes place, suffers from uninspired — or perhaps overly inspired by sci-fi classics such as “Alien” or “Star Wars” — industrial-like set design. Exposed plumbing runs overheard in every corridor, and plumes of white smoke constantly billow out from seemingly nowhere. The walls, ceilings and floors are gray, gray, gray. 

Similar to his 2019 Oscar-winning movie “Parasite,” Bong plays on capitalist themes of wealth, power and exploitation to roaring success. 

“In real life, you see a lot of jobs that end in fatal accidents,” Bong said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “When that happens, the worker leaves, another worker comes. The job remains the same — it’s just the people who get replaced. You can call it the capitalist tragedy of our times, and in this film it’s even more extreme.”

Relying heavily on the characters of Marshall and his wife Ylfa, the film excels in critiquing the capitalist motifs through absurd, satirical comedy.

Tucked away from the gray grime of the rest of the ship, the couple dictate employees’ lives — from diets to sex habits — in a garishly-decorated room with pink walls, a poached tiger head on the wall and gaudy golden mirrors.

Smiling through eerily straight veneers — reminiscent of a horse — Ruffalo (“Poor Things,” “The Avengers”) infects the screen with lecherous charm. A dirty showman, he prances across stage with impeccably coiffed hair, filming propaganda for his loyal, red hat-wearing followers.

However, despite Marshall’s seeming parallels with President Donald Trump, Bong said the character was inspired by a mix of politicians, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Though an almost two-hour endeavor, the film ends with a whimper. It unsuccessfully attempts to unravel a knotty plot into a neat bow by stitching together a happily-ever-after, dream sequence and plot twist in the final minutes.

Waffling between clever and basic commentary and wallowing in predictable sci-fi visual design, “Mickey 17” falls into the mediocre middle of futuristic sci-fi films — neither show-stopping nor rubbish. 

“Mickey 17” is in theaters now.