During a human expedition to colonize space, Mickey 17, a so-called “expendable” employee, is sent to explore an ice planet.

Review

Bong Joon Ho’s follow up to his Academy Award-winning Parasite is a broad sci-fi epic about a military excursion on a remote planet where the heavy lifting is done by Mickey (Robert Pattinson, giving it his all), an expendable who is cloned every time he dies. Unfortunately, one of the clones left for dead didn’t actually die and Mickey 17 must cohabit with Mickey 18, a newer version of himself. Chaos ensues between the Mickeys and his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) and girlfriend Nasha (Naomi Ackie). Mickey(s) need(s) to get his (their) shit together to take on political leader Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette).

Pattinson was pretty great, and the movie is way funnier than expected. I started out hating Ruffalo who was so ridiculously over the top (and an easy ape of a ridiculously over the top sitting president) but softened by the end of the film once I just embraced the absurdity. Collette too was sometimes exhausting, sometimes hilarious. The movie’s ending is a bit of a mess, with mid CGI and thin metaphors.

Still, I found myself fascinated by the concepts the movie was introducing even if the execution wasn’t always worthy of them.

Jonathan’s grade – C+