Mickey 17: Two’s company, but Cloning’s a crowd? (film review)
Bong Joon-ho’s latest cinematic offering, Mickey 17, is the kind of film that reminds us why we love science fiction: it’s weird, it’s witty, and it’s packed with just enough existential dread to keep you contemplating your own mortality while still munching popcorn.
Based on Edward Ashton’s novel Mickey7 (hands-up: I haven’t read the book – too busy penning my own stuff these days), the film follows Mickey Barnes (aka Robert Pattinson), an expendable worker on the human colony Nilfheim. As an expendable, his job is to die. Repeatedly. With each gruesome end, a new Mickey is regenerated, memory intact, ready for another round of corporate servitude. But when Mickey 17 miraculously survives, only to find he’s already been replaced by Mickey 18, things get complicated. Under colony law, duplicate expendables are not allowed. The solution? Delete them both. Hilarity ensues, along with some biting satire about power, identity, and the sheer absurdity of bureaucracy.
The idea of achieving immortality by printing or cloning new bodies isn’t exactly a fresh concept—science fiction has been toying with it for decades. I tackled it myself in my novel, Empty Beyond the Stars. Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon also gave us the cyberpunk world of “sleeves,” where the rich can endlessly swap bodies like a wardrobe change. John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War reimagined military service with cloned, enhanced bodies ready to house old minds. Meanwhile, David Brin’s Kiln People let people print temporary duplicates of themselves, and Greg Egan’s Diaspora took it even further with post-human consciousness hopping between physical and digital forms. Comics haven’t shied away either—Marvel’s X-Men now have a mutant resurrection protocol where they print fresh bodies on demand, and Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles explored body-hopping and post-human evolution long before Hollywood caught on. Basically, SF has been looking at cloning/body printing/consciousness transfer and asking, “But is it really you?” for ages.
However, that doesn’t mean this new film is derivative. Far from it. Robert Pattinson, doubling up as both Mickeys, gives a performance that is nothing short of mesmerising. Whether it’s as the beaten-down, perpetually exasperated Mickey 17 or the slightly more aggressive, unnervingly ambitious Mickey 18, Pattinson delivers comedy and pathos in equal measure. There’s an undeniable Jim Carrey-esque elasticity to his performance, bouncing between slapstick physicality and deadpan resignation. If you’ve ever wondered what The Lighthouse would have been like if it had a budget, a sci-fi setting, and twice as many Pattinsons, this is your answer.
But it’s not just a one-man show. Naomi Ackie as Nasha, Mickey’s no-nonsense love interest (and former girlfriend of a previous Mickey—awkward), brings both warmth and steel to the film. Steven Yeun’s Timo, Mickey’s best mate and occasional backstabber, provides the perfect foil, while Mark Ruffalo’s Kenneth Marshall—a self-aggrandising, fanatical politician—steals every scene he’s in. Toni Collette, as Marshall’s power-hungry, sauce-obsessed wife Ylfa, is deliciously unhinged, adding a layer of grotesque satire that veers dangerously close to reality.
Visually, Mickey 17 is a treat. Bong’s long-time cinematographer Darius Khondji makes Nilfheim feel both alien and eerily familiar—a bleak, corporate dystopia punctuated by bursts of icy beauty (while the tech has echoes of Syd Mead). The production design, led by Fiona Crombie, gives us everything from sterile, fluorescent-lit corridors to the ostentatiously gaudy chambers of Marshall and Ylfa, a grotesque blend of 1984 meets Trump Tower in space.
As for the satire, Bong pulls no punches. The film takes jabs at late-stage capitalism, authoritarian regimes, and corporate exploitation, all while serving up a plot that feels like Severance had a baby with Edge of Tomorrow. There’s an undercurrent of biting humour, as Mickey—both of them—scrambles to avoid his fate, navigating a world that sees him as nothing more than a regenerating meat-puppet. The film’s religious undertones, with Marshall’s cult-like following insisting on a pure, one-clone-at-a-time society, add an extra layer of biting commentary on blind obedience and power structures.
If there’s a flaw to be found, it’s that Bong’s ambition sometimes gets the better of him. The third act veers into chaos, throwing ideas at the wall at breakneck speed. Some land brilliantly; others feel underdeveloped. But even when Mickey 17 gets a little messy, it remains exhilarating. Bong isn’t here to give us a tidy, three-act narrative—he’s here to entertain, to provoke, and to make us laugh while we squirm.
Mickey 17 is a strange beast, and that’s precisely why it works. It’s an audacious, absurdist sci-fi black comedy that doesn’t just poke fun at the dystopian nightmare of corporate greed—it takes a sledgehammer to it. Whether you come for the existential musings, the social commentary, or just the sight of Robert Pattinson repeatedly dying in increasingly ridiculous ways, one thing’s for certain: you won’t be bored.
Bong Joon-ho has done it again, and we’re all the better for it.
Stephen Hunt
Stephen is the best-selling author of a number of fantasy and science fiction novels for HarperCollins, Green Nebula, Tor, and Gollancz, and is published around the world in 27 different languages. You can find him online at his blog, www.StephenHunt.net
