Mickey 17 and the Myth of the Expendable Life

I’ve been looking forward to Mickey 17 for a while. In fact, it became one of my most anticipated upcoming films even before I knew what it was about. When I learned the movie was being made by Bong Joon Ho, the man behind the 2019 hit Parasite, I immediately put it on my must-watch list. This guy has been making amazing genre films for over two decades (if you’ve only seen Parasite, I highly recommend checking out his other work; you won’t be disappointed), so I’ll watch anything he does. I couldn’t wait to see this darkly comedic sci-fi adventure, and now that I finally have, I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint.

Mickey 17 was written and directed by Bong Joon Ho, and it stars Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo. In the film, the titular Mickey is in a unique line of work. His job is to die. Repeatedly. See, in this world, humanity has perfected its cloning technology, so if someone’s desperate enough, they can become an expendable. These are people, like Mickey, whose job is to be experimented on and perform jobs so dangerous they’re essentially suicide missions, and every time they die, their employer simply prints them a new body, complete with their memories and personality.

But one day, something goes wrong. Mickey’s seventeenth iteration (hence the name Mickey 17) doesn’t die like he’s supposed to, so when the company creates another clone, they end up with two Mickeys simultaneously. This is a big taboo, so Mickey 17 has to keep his existence a secret for as long as possible. But of course, that’s easier said than done. He doesn’t stay in the shadows for long, and soon enough, the two Mickeys find themselves at the center of a potentially catastrophic encounter between humanity and an otherworldly species that can only be described as giant roly-polies.

Like any movie, Mickey 17 relies heavily on the strength of its characters, and to be honest, they’re a bit of a mixed bag. Let’s start with the negatives. The primary antagonist of this film is Kenneth Marshall, a conniving, evil politician who hides his dastardly plans behind a hypocritical facade of Christian faith, and he’s about as flat as they come.

If you close your eyes and just listen to his dialogue, you’d almost certainly picture him twirling his mustache every time he opens his mouth, and to make matters worse, actor Mark Ruffalo plays the part like a bad Donald Trump impersonation. He even purses his lips when he speaks, so if you enjoy overly on-the-nose political commentary, you’re going to love this guy. But if you’re like me and you prefer it when filmmakers at least try to be a bit subtle, this character is just going to make you roll your eyes every time he’s on screen.

Along similar lines, Marshall’s wife, Ylfa, is just as one-dimensional and over the top as her husband, so the two make for one of the most uninteresting villain duos I’ve seen in a while. There’s just nothing to these characters beyond their propensity for evil, so if you ask me, they feel more like walking plot points than real, flesh-and-blood human beings. It’s a huge character misstep that essentially lays the weight of this story entirely on the good guys’ shoulders, and in a lot of movies, that would be fatal.

But not here. Mickey 17 manages to avoid that pitfall, and the film’s biggest saving grace is Robert Pattinson’s amazing dual performance. He plays all the Mickey variants, but of course, Mickeys 17 and 18 are the stars of the show. Interestingly, most of these characters are very similar, almost indistinguishable in fact, but when Mickey 18 comes on the scene, he’s different.

The movie doesn’t explain why, so if you’re looking for pinpoint logical precision, that minor plot hole is probably going to bother you. But if you can forgive slight transgressions like that, you’ll realize it’s actually for the best. By making these two versions of Mickey so different, Pattinson gets to show off his incredible range as an actor, and it’s an absolute joy to behold.

The titular Mickey 17 is a timid, weak, somewhat awkward fellow, but Mickey 18 carries himself with a confident, almost arrogant bad-boy swagger. Everything about these characters, from the way they talk to their facial expressions and even the way they stand, is different, so if you didn’t know any better, you’d never think they were two versions of the same person.

It’s a bit reminiscent of James McAvoy’s performances in Split and Glass, but by focusing on only two personalities, Pattinson is able to explore them in greater depth. That impressive display of acting dexterity just about carries Mickey 17, but it’s not the only thing this film has going for it. The rest of the cast is pretty good too (aside from the villains, of course), and the dark humor adds a really nice touch that keeps the story’s weighty themes from becoming too oppressive.

As you can probably guess from the premise, this movie deals with death and the natural human fear of dying, so without the jokes, the experience would become very drab very quickly. But thankfully, it never does, so these heavy ideas go down much more smoothly than you might expect.

On top of that, the overall message of Mickey 17 is also quite admirable. I can’t talk about it too much without giving away some key plot points, but suffice it to say that this film ultimately highlights the inalienable value of every human being. The story’s cloning technology naturally raises questions about personal identity and the possibility of overcoming death with science, but that’s little more than philosophical window dressing.

Sure, those are interesting ideas to explore, but at its core, the seemingly endless succession of Mickey clones is an allegory for the ways our world (and especially those in power) often treats human life as expendable. All too often, people like Kenneth Marshall and his wife only care about advancing their own goals and interests, and they show absolutely no concern for the pain and destruction they leave in their wake. As long as it benefits them, they have no qualms about hurting or even killing those they consider expendable, and this story makes the ugliness of that attitude impossible to miss.

It’s a message all people of good will can get behind, and when you combine it with Robert Pattinson’s amazing dual performance and the fun comedy, you get a great time at the theater. To be fair, the weak villains keep this movie from being one of Bong Joon Ho’s best, but a mid-tier entry in this guy’s filmography is still enough to earn a hearty thumbs up from me.

​