Mickey 17

Hey everyone, and welcome, today, we will be talking about the film Mickey 17. Spoilers Ahead! Fun Fact: this film is based on a book called Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton. This film came out in 2025 and stars Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, and Mark Ruffalo and was directed by Bong Joon-Ho. So, without further ado, let's get right into it.

Mickey 17 follows Mickey, who is an expendable, a human used for testing dangerous things, and once he dies, he is reprinted from recycled materials and his memories are re-uploaded. The main rule of expendables is that there will be only one printed at a time. After the 17th version of Mickey is assumed to be dead, they print off the number 18, but 17 is actually alive. Now, the two must navigate, staying undercover as well as figuring out how to stop a war between the humans on the ship and the native creatures found on the planet that the humans have named Creepers.

Mickey 17 is a Dark Comedy Sci-Fi film. It has similar vibes to Snowpiercer, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, or Avatar.

Bong Joon-Ho is a director I enjoy because I'm always interested to see how he will tie in class and social themes in his films. Mickey 17 is an interesting concept, to have people printed out like paper after dying from testing something that is going to help society. I feel like either the film leaned more into political commentary than Bong’s previous films, or maybe I just noticed it more since I'm more familiar with his films and some of the topics he brings up. While the topics may be familiar, he mixes them with sci-fi elements that are interesting and have you excited to see where this story goes.

Something small that I was thinking about after the film was how the planet they went to was named Niflheim. Niflheim is the world ruled by the goddess Hel in Norse mythology. It is known for being dark and cold, and usually, when we see it in media that focuses on Norse mythology, it is a frozen planet, which is mirrored in this movie. I love how the name of the planet was not just some random name and was pulled from mythology.

Robert Pattison stars as Mickey Barnes, aka Mickey 17 or 18 or any number before. As an expendable, we see how he is constantly dying to help the colony, and you would think people would feel sorry because who wants to keep doing that? But people can be insensitive, and some just want to know how it feels to die and be reborn. Robert did a great job not only playing this character who is kind of dumb but also a really nice guy who is very passive and seems to be in a bad situation after a bad situation. He also plays another version of the character, 18, who seems to be more aggressive and has some cosmetic differences that help to tell them apart. His voicing of the character reminded me of how I seem to always forget how talented Robert is because to be able to not only come up with that accent but hold it for an entire film is impressive. He has trauma from when he was a kid because he thinks he killed his mom, which kind of makes you understand why he may be more reserved because he doesn't want something like that to happen again where he is the cause of so much pain. When 17 & 18 go to talk to the mother creeper, 18 tells him that the accident wasn't his fault, which I think 17 really needed to hear. It was sad to see 18 sacrifice himself, but I'm glad that he did it after seeing how selfless 17 was, which let 17 have a life where he could be with Nasha.

It was interesting to see how Mickey got into this pickle in the first place, which also gives us a back story on how what he's doing isn't something he wants to do. This company traps people with all this paperwork they don't understand, which seems to mirror corporations and government entities who know people won't read it all, so they just let them do something without knowing exactly what they are signing. Mickey's situation just highlights predatory practices like these, and it was a good call to show the extreme of this with him being something they can just kill and make a new one.

Nasha, who is played by Naomie Ackie, is the love interest of Mickey and probably the only one who is actually looking out for his wellbeing. She is security on the ship, and oftentimes times, when people try to bully Mickey, she doesn't put up with it and saves the day, which sometimes gets them thrown in confinement. She was a ride-or-die and helped him not only make the time on this ship less depressing but also helped him save everybody due to her understanding of what he meant with his gestures. She was a true ride-or-die and didn't put Mickey down, question his experiences with death, or question his decisions. I loved that she didn't follow suit and was a fighter with a kind heart.  in a flashback, we see how the doctors treated Mickey as some object to poke with needles and did nothing while he was dying she threatened them so she could get a suit and sit with him while he died because she knew even though he was a clone and this was his job, it didn't make him less of a human, and no one should have to die alone even if they are going to be reprinted.

One of my favorite things Nasha does is call out the Colonialism that is happening, even though Kenneth doesn't want to call it that. I think it's important, too, how she not only called it colonialism but also explained what it was and how taking land that is not yours and calling the natives enemies without trying to communicate is bad. We have seen it so many times in history, and it has been celebrated even though it should not. I'm sure it would have been here, too, but she makes a point to make sure that everyone watching knows that it is bad, and just because a person in power is encouraging it doesn't mean you need to go along with it. There are ways around creating death and destruction, and Nasha and Mickey were trying to do that because they have morals and realize that everyone could live together harmoniously.

Kenneth is played by Mark Ruffalo, who is a very corrupt and dumb politician who seems to have jumped at the chance to create this colony, and with his wife Ylfa, played by Toni Collette, navigate how to remain in power.  Mickey 17 questions if Kenneth is the person they should be following, and 18 really wants to kill him, which gets them caught for being duplicates. He kind of mirrors Trump with how cult-like his followers are and how he has this man with him who uses values that they say are based on religious beliefs, but they twist them in order to fulfill a goal that would only benefit the people in power. He gets taken out by Mickey 18, in the end, to satisfy the mother since the creatures wanted a life for a life. In the end, Mickey has a weird dream of Ylfa trying to print him again, saying what people will want, and it feels like it is a reminder that leaders like Kenneth who don't benefit anyone but themselves can be defeated, but there is always a chance for them to come back so it's important to always remember that.

Toni Collette plays Ylfa, and she is hilarious in her role. She plays a character who seems to enjoy being so adjacent to power and has found a way to make sure her husband does what she wants because he is so dumb.

Steven Yeun plays Timo, who is a supposed friend of Mickey. I say supposed because the only reason that Mickey is in this mess is because Timo added him to a deal with a gangster, and now their lives are at risk he suggests this ship as an alternative way out in which he only finds a solution for himself to get on board and leaves Mickey to find his own way which is how Mickey ended up as an expendable. Even with all the craziness, he has not learned his lesson and sells drugs on the ship and throws anyone under the bus to get what he wants.

There is another officer, Kai, who likes Mickey and tries to sleep with him until he says no. She finds out there are two Mickeys and proposes to Nasha that she gets one, which obviously doesn't go over well. Later, she is the one who kills the creeper, and then her storyline kind of fizzles out after that. It seemed like her character was getting thrown in the mix, so I wanted them to bring her up more because I was curious to see if she would be able to help them or if she would help the other side. It felt like they wanted you to know this character and were starting to build up her character, only to let her story just disappear.

The creeper had a cool design; it kind of looked like a giant roach, but the Mother looked more like a walrus. They have more alien features when they demonstrate how loud they can scream, which was really weird but also kind of cool. I loved that the aliens were peaceful and just didn't want to be bothered.

Bong Joon-Ho always has these messages in his films, as I stated, about class and social themes, which obviously will probably mix with political themes, and I'm always interested to see what they are in his films. I saw the class difference in Kenneth and Ylfa, who are people tasked with overseeing this mission, living luxurious, and just being disrespectful to everyone else with this lifestyle. I think in situations like this, you need a leader, but oftentimes, people think a leader is one who will sit and dictate when, in reality, they should be helping make everything run smoother and easier. They live in a luxurious suite while everyone else lives in these grey, dull, small suites, so it’s not shocking that not everyone would be praising them.  They reminded me of corrupt politicians and how they make promises to do something, and people vote them in, and then they get there and do nothing even though their constituents are relying on them to do something. Also, how Kenneth would do or say anything to get his way, even if it was a lie or would harm people, which is something that always seems indicative of being a politician. Kenneth literally almost risked mass casualties because instead of admitting that the creatures could be smart, he wanted to just get rid of them and harvest their tails for sauce. Mickey’s job is Expendable because he is used as a test dummy, which typically ends with him dying. When he dies, they make a new one of him, he comes back, and gets tested on again, which is a role that someone who is considered low-class would do because someone upper class knows it’s a horrible job and can pay someone to do it. It reminded me of animal testing because the reason they are doing these things may be for the greater good, but using humans or animals is not the way to go about this. Also, the doctors don't care about these patients, they use them for what they need at the moment and don't take into account that he is still human. Mickey is forgotten about when he is being printed multiple times, and when he’s dying, they talk about him as an object, not a person. The name expendable is interesting because to the doctors and the people higher up, he is just a number, and on a larger scale, this seems to reflect the lower class all over the world because it is often overlooked with regard to how much we need them to survive. No one is expendable, and no one should be treated like a number because society has a lot of moving parts, and all need to work together to ensure society survives, which is something we see in this movie.

My favorite part of this film is the end, where we see the little board go from Mickey 17 to 18 to 19, but then it seems to break, and then we get the board saying Mickey Barnes instead. I think this was a perfect way to mirror the similar thing in the beginning, where it went from 17 to 18, but also show that he is still a person and he is not just a number. Mickey felt useless throughout the movie, and this moment made me think about how important he was. The job, even though I'm against it, he helped so many survive by testing out so much stuff. He seems to be a little slow to some people, but I think that slowness is part of the reason why they even know the Creepers are intelligent beings and not harmful, then we see through his empathy how he understood the pain the creatures were feeling and tried to come up with a compromise with the least amount of bloodshed and leaves everyone happy. Through Mickey, the people take over, and the ones on the ground doing the work realize how inhumane the cloning machine is and destroy it. Mickey Barnes is the perfect example of someone who may feel useless and that they don't contribute to society, but they do, and I think he's also a reminder to people who feel that way that they matter and that they are important and not to let people walk over them.

Mickey 17 is a fun Sci-fi movie that brings up themes around colonialism, social hierarchy, class structure, and how politics play a role in making society better or worse. The cast was amazing, and while I think there were minor issues with not expanding some stories or the timeline explaining his backstory, it was still a very enjoyable movie. Bong Joon-Ho did a great job making this film with these messages that feel like they belong in the story and also makes it pretty easy for the viewer to identify them.