Mickey 17: Subtlety Is Dead—And Should Be
by Karen Reyes
Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has died 16 times. He is what they call an “expendable”—his sole purpose to be a test subject, to die and be reprinted for humanity’s needs. It’s the 2050s and humans have hopped on spaceships to escape capitalism and a dying Earth. Four years into the expedition, Mickey is now the eponymous Mickey 17.
Director Bong Joon-ho is known for his criticism of various societal ailments, mainly capitalism and class hierarchy, as seen in works like Snowpiercer (2013), Okja (2017), and Parasite (2019). His style mixes comedy and absurdity with dark, disturbing elements, all of which he loads into Mickey 17 (2025). Classified as a sci-fi comedy, his latest film chaotically ventures beyond the topic of capitalism. Or rather, he finds the intersection where capitalism meets ethical scientific dilemmas, climate change, and colonialism. Bong holds up a painfully clean mirror to our own future by leaning into overt symbols and language to get to political satire. To start, he builds a reality where your options for paying off debt are leaving the planet or dying—either via a loan shark who revels in videotaping the brutal murders of his borrowers or via a lack of resources.
The colonialism and scientific dilemmas shine through the caricatures that are Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), and the on-ship scientists. From take-off to the end of the film, Marshall spews what imitates our own politicians’ right-wing rhetoric, promising that they will “infest” this new planet and create a “pure, white planet full of superior people like us.” (Though there is something ironic about leaving a dying planet to colonize the already dead and frozen-over Niflheim.) The word “infest” is one of Bong’s many well-placed jabs at the laughable nature of the colonizer mentality along with the passionate, almost too obvious, red-hat-wearing Kenneth Marshall devotees. His character combines politician with flashy talk show host, adding an element of ridiculousness to match how existentially dreadful it feels watching the current President of the United States and his overzealous sidekick ensure our world continues falling apart. Director Bong says Marshall isn’t inspired by any particular politician and that audiences around the world project their own stressful leaders onto him. But how couldn’t we, when Marshall doesn’t come across so much as a silly parody as he is a damn accurate representation of our reality.
The scientists, fearful of Marshall’s trigger-happy countenance, are eager to please and disregard any ethics—namely when it comes to how they treat Mickey and the native inhabitants of Niflheim which Ylfa and Marshall refer to as “vermin” to be eliminated. The most obvious ethical dilemma is whether it’s okay to create “expendables” since they (mostly) retain their memories and minds and are thus as human as anyone else. At what point has science gone too far? At what point do we ignore ethics and humanity for the sake of “advancement” and convenience? Bong presents these questions to viewers as one of the overarching criticisms in the film in an equally as funny and distressing way as he presents Marshall and Ylfa.
Mickey’s take on the entire thing is admirably lukewarm. He learns to accept death—it isn’t a permanent state of being to him anymore. But things change the one time he doesn’t die and has an existential crisis upon finding Mickey 18 and realizing there is only one Mickey 17. From here there are almost always two Robert Pattinsons on screen playing complete opposite personalities. We overuse the phrase “shapeshifter” for actors, but Pattinson truly disappears into the mannerisms, voices, and personalities of both Mickeys. He managed to make me pick one over the other despite looking and sounding fairly identical. He embodies entirely distinct energies while playing only slight variables of the same character.
But Robert Pattinson wasn’t the only impressive performance. Naomi Ackie plays Nasha, a security agent and Mickey’s love and motivation to stay alive. She is powerful, smart, and the one person to stay by Mickey’s side through all of his variations. Nasha also delivers arguably some of the funniest and most satisfying, impactful lines in the script making her one of my favorite characters. Without her, Mickey and the entire ship would have been hopeless as she also becomes an advocate for humanity’s survival in the latter half of the film. And I can’t only give credit to Pattinson and Ackie when the rest of the cast also provided a mix of hilarious, disturbing, and emotionally moving performances.
While Mickey 17 as a whole feels uncomfortably on the nose, it seems impossible to tackle these subjects with subtlety anymore. And I don’t mean that as criticism. I applaud Director Bong for embracing the fact that we no longer have the luxury of subtle approaches to these topics because we’re living them. We might want to categorize it as shallow but it’s only because we can turn on the news and see our very own version of Kenneth Marshall, our own terrifying and unsure suggestions of interplanetary colonization, and the well-advanced consequences of late-stage capitalistic greed and climate change. Yes, Mickey 17 is a wonderful sci-fi comedy. But it may also fill you with existential dread—something we’ve come to expect from the masterpieces of Bong Joon-ho.