Mick­ey 17 review – gross and heart­warm­ing in equal measure

The way things are going, even the most spec­u­la­tive sci-fi feels entire­ly plau­si­ble – take Edward Ashton’s ​‘Mick­ey 7’ for exam­ple, in which the hap­less Mick­ey Barnes effec­tive­ly becomes a crash-test dum­my for a shady space coloni­sa­tion oper­a­tion lead­ing to his repeat­ed death and revival through a ​‘human print­ing’ pro­gramme. (If the Depart­ment of Work and Pen­sions hears about that, they might think it’s a can­ny way to cut unem­ploy­ment.) It’s easy to under­stand what attract­ed Bong Joon Ho to the project, scout­ed by Warn­er Bros and Plan B after the roar­ing suc­cess of Par­a­site in 2019 which won the Palme d’Or, a quar­ter of Oscars includ­ing Best Pic­ture, and made a $246.7 mil­lion return on invest­ment at the box office. It’s the same mix of pre­scient sci-fi, zany humour and crea­ture fea­ture that he’s shown an affin­i­ty for across The Host, Snow­piercer and Okja – for his third Eng­lish-lan­guage film, Direc­tor Bong returns to famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry, but with no less ambi­tion or heart than he has shown through­out his career.

Along for the ride is Robert Pat­tin­son, star­ring as Mick­eys 1 through 18, and while it might seem insult­ing to say he was born to play a sweaty, nasal los­er like Mick­ey, Pat­tin­son him­self – who has shown an affin­i­ty for under­dogs and weirdos since break­ing free from the shack­les of teen idol­a­try – would prob­a­bly take it as a com­pli­ment. With Mick­ey 17 and 18 tak­ing cen­tre stage, he delin­eates between the two roles with a mas­ter­ful com­mand of phys­i­cal­i­ty and glo­ri­ous lack of van­i­ty. If Mick­ey 17 is the meek, hang­dog iter­a­tion, 18 is semi-psy­chot­ic, instant­ly tak­ing his pre­de­ces­sors’ place after he’s left for dead dur­ing one of his dan­ger­ous mis­sions on the ice plan­et Niflheim’s frozen tun­dra. Not only must Mick­ey 17 con­tend with a mega­lo­ma­ni­ac employ­er (Mark Ruf­fa­lo) and his own sneaky best mate (Steven Yeun), but now a cool­er ver­sion of him is try­ing to steal his girl­friend (Nao­mi Ack­ie) and kill his crew­mates. It’s no won­der he’s feel­ing a bit perturbed.

His col­leagues are more con­cerned by the mys­te­ri­ous crea­tures who inhab­it Nifl­heim than Mickey’s malaise. The ​“creep­ers”, as they’re nick­named, resem­ble a crois­sant crossed with a wood­louse, and despite Mickey’s protes­ta­tions that they saved his life, are seen as a threat by colony leader Ken­neth Mar­shall and a tasty snack by his odi­ous, condi­ment-obsessed wife Ylfa (Toni Col­lette). If it all sounds a bit mad­cap, that’s because it is – Direc­tor Bong has always embraced the comedic in his film­mak­ing as much as dev­as­tat­ing­ly sharp social commentary.

While Mick­ey 17 isn’t quite as slick as Par­a­site in its exe­cu­tion and the film’s two plot lines don’t quite seam­less­ly coa­lesce, Pattinson’s typ­i­cal­ly com­mit­ted and zany duel per­for­mance (along with Nao­mi Ackie’s delight­ful sup­port­ing turn as Nasha) make it sing all the same. Yes, Ruf­fa­lo and Collette’s over­act­ing feels like a pale imi­ta­tion of Til­da Swin­ton in Snow­piercer, but even so, it’s hard to not be endeared by Mick­ey 17​’s rough edges, and after his mon­ster suc­cess in 2019, it’s a relief that Direc­tor Bong is as fun­ny (and fun!) as ever. This one’s for the die-hard Bong Hive – the ones who know Okja nev­er got its due.