Mickey 17 Review: Bong Joon-ho’s Mind-Bending Sci-Fi Madness!

Bong Joon-ho knows just the right time to hit the iron while it’s hot. It was Parasite that earned an Oscar and still holds a prestigious 99 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, and he is back again with another masterpiece.

Mickey 17 might not be able to get THAT high of an RT score, but it is true that his blasting off to outer space has hit some serious records.

This Mickey 17 review unpacks some major details about the movie so far, so you can decide whether to skip it or add it to your must-watch list. 

Mickey 17 movie plot

The film is based on the 2022 novel ‘Mickey 7’ authored by Edward Ashton. Robert Pattinson is seen as Mickey Barnes, an expendable employee who is here to do all the dirty work, desperate to pay a brutal loan, even if it means dying again and again for it.

He is deployed for a mission on a far-away planet- mainly a risky testing program that comprises a continuous assembly line of clones. No matter how deadly an alien virus is, there is no problem. They print out another Mickey clone.

Mickey 17 is the seventeenth one in the line. He decides this is going too far than what was decided and needs to fight back. That is when we see a face-off with his own self. 

Now you have to watch the rest of the flick to encounter the chaotic situation with Mickey’s lookalike, Mickey 18. Here’s a sneak peek:

Joon-ho’s vision- From novel to film

Of course, there is Joon-ho’s touch to the movie. According to IGN, the novel is based on the day-to-day pondering Mickey to get out of the helpless situation, while the film focuses on “how dangers of fascism can be both existentially frightening and darkly funny”.

The film does stay true to the comedic tone of the novel, but it is inevitable to experience Joon-ho’s dark satire of the elements of reality. It would not be wrong to say that the film is greatly a ‘political’ satire.

Why do we say so? Because we see several themes revolving around one base theme; the sub-themes are space colonization, corruption, propaganda and censorship, climate change, workers’ rights, and treating humans disposably. 

Once again, Korean cinema heavily resides on political and social injustice themes, which are evident in several other films in the Korean industry. Bong Joon-ho explained, 

“There is a lot of humor in this film, but it doesn’t roll with the singular goal of making the audience laugh.” [Source]

He confessed that exploring social-political themes does give the film a serious tone but that is where the humorous tone comes in to balance off, giving the audience a “longer-lasting impression”.

However, soon after that they have a good laugh, they are bound to wonder ‘Was that actually worth-laughing’ and then they start to feel “guilty”. This is the real recipe for Joon-ho’s magic!  

Joon-ho knows where to leave it to the viewers’ thinking, and that is why sci-fi storytelling is the best form of tactic he played with. He confronted the real-world issues and events, masking the serious topics with a disguise of jocularity. 

Moreover, while talking to Indie Wire, Joon-ho admitted that it was the time of 2021’s pandemic, when he was writing the script. Robert Pattinson becoming a lab rat for innumerable tests and embedding of political context was ineluctable. It is hard for the audience not to notice the semblance between Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Trump for space exploration and Earth’s environmental deterioration. 

Mickey 17’s performance at the box office

With its $118 million budget, Mickey 17 has been able to secure $19.1 million at the domestic box office, as per Variety, at the time of writing. It needs to gross around $275-300 million globally to reach the mark. 

The film opened in Joon-ho’s native region, South Korea, and did quite well. It grossed $34.2 million and $53.3 million worldwide altogether. 

What do critics add to Mickey 17 review? All praise for Pattinson’s acting

The renowned filmmaker Park Chan-wook acclaims Pattinson’s acting and urges Academy judges to consider him for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, as per Filmo Filia. He said, 

“Give him both.”

Robert Pattinson’s acting has been the talk of the town soon after the movie’s release. His double role is a work of art as he played entirely opposite characters in both.

Mickey 17 is the non-aggressive one, while Mickey 18 is more violent. It is fascinating to see that both can co-exist and both are required to advocate for peace, keeping the calm and assertive approaches side by side. 

It is even interesting to know when the news started floating that Pattinson changed his voice for both of his characters. AP News reported that Pattinson wanted to do this “like a cartoon character performance”. The 28-year-old Twilight actor gave the example of ‘Ren and Stimpy’ whereas he initially wanted to do impressions of Steve-O and Johnny Knoxville. 

He revealed that the short-tempered voicing suited well with the character of Mickey 18 while Mickey 17’s calm voice was aptly chosen for the purpose.

Pattinson assured the audience that setting a particular tone and voice for his character is the first thing that he does as soon as he gets the script. Even Steve Buscemi was escalated after hearing Pattinson copied his accent from one of his iconic films “Fargo”. Buscemi accepted that he was “blown away”, per Indie Wire. 

The fact was corroborated by The Wrap’s review as well when Ben Croll, the film journalist and critic, straightaway accredited a similarity of Pattinson’s witty acting with that of Jim Carrey’s, urging Pattinson to “easily call comedy to his true calling”.  

In reality, Robert Pattinson is provocative, candid, and down-to-earth as he tends to bring a sense of self-deprecation, yet “consistently excellent in every role he took”, as mentioned by The Telegraph’s author and journalist, Alexander Larman. 

Even critics on Rotten Tomatoes couldn’t resist praising the movie’s exotic execution. A critic from Slate expressed, 

“Mickey 17 is remarkable for the savagery of its satire of 21st -capitalism.” 

It would be unfair to just leave it here and not mention why Bong Joon-ho chose Robert Pattinson for this role. He told the British Film Institute that he needed someone who had a “broad spectrum” to play complete opposites in the form of Mickey 17 and 18.

 

 

 

 

 

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And yes, Joon-ho told that he straightaway looks like Mickey 17, just as the novel cited. Besides, Pattinson’s powerful performances in The King (2019) and The Lighthouse (2019) convinced him to cast him right away. 

Our rating: 6.5/10

Is Mickey 17 available for streaming right now?

Currently, Mickey 17 is exclusively available in theatres. Recently, Warner Bros. has announced physical media releases where Mickey 17 is available for you to enjoy if you haven’t been able to watch it in theatres yet.

I will be available from Tuesday, May 13, on DVD and 4K via rent or purchase from Prime Video, Apple TV and other selected video-on-demand platforms.

(This article has been updated with the above-cited information about the film’s availability on digital platforms.)

Genre: Space sci-fi, dark comedy, adventure, fantasy 

IMDb rating: 7.2

Rotten Tomatoes: 78 percent on Tomatometer (critics score) and 73 percent on Popcornmeter

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Steven Yeun, Michael Monroe, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Producers: Bong Joon-ho, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Choi Dooho

Writers: Bong Joon-ho and Edward Ashton 

Initial release date: March 7, 2025

Movie runtime:  2 hours 17 minutes

Could Robert Pattinson’s dual role in Mickey 17 be his best performance ever? Drop a comment.