I’ve been a huge fan of Bong Joon-ho for years, and while the bulk of his filmography is remarkable, two films in particular stand out: Snowpiercer (which I recently revisited thanks to the 4K UHD release) and Parasite. The former, with its grimy, lived-in production design and exploration of class separation in a confined space, may well have provided some inspiration for Mickey 17, but it’s the latter’s ability to be wickedly funny while making its audience deeply uncomfortable that also informs Bong’s latest film, screening this weekend at the 75th annual Berlinale. While Mickey 17 may not be quite as strong as Parasite (a nigh-impossible bar to clear), it’s easily Bong’s best English-language offering to date, and arguably his funniest.
Set in a bleak future where Earth is no longer habitable, the film follows Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), an “Expendable” (not the Sylvester Stallone kind) on a government expedition to colonize the harsh, ice-covered planet Niflheim. In case you’re wondering whether the job title is a metaphor, it isn’t: Mickey’s role is to die, over and over, usually quite painfully. Every time he perishes, a fresh clone is printed, implanted with the memories of the last iteration. The other crew members barely acknowledge his humanity, treating each new version as disposable as the last, and asking invasive questions about what it feels like to perish. If this all sounds grim, it is — but in Bong’s hands, it’s also hilarious. There’s an undercurrent of slapstick to Mickey’s suffering, a gallows humor that plays his demise for absurdity rather than shock.
Pattinson leans into the physicality of the role, portraying Mickey 17 as an awkward, self-effacing loser whose greatest flaw is how little he values himself. Then there’s Mickey 18, his eventual double, a sharper and more dangerous version who understands that survival means refusing to be the galaxy’s punching bag. Watching Pattinson play off himself is an endless delight: Mickey 17’s wide-eyed, stammering confusion is a perfect foil to the cold calculation of Mickey 18, and the way Pattinson shifts between hapless everyman and borderline sociopath, sometimes within a single scene, is a testament to his range.
But Pattinson isn’t the only one having fun. Mark Ruffalo, playing mission commander Kenneth Marshall, is a masterclass in cartoonish authoritarianism. Imagine if Donald Trump ran the Church of Scientology and launched an interstellar colonization mission, and you get the general idea. Kenneth is an egotist and a fraud, obsessed with optics and power despite clearly having neither under control. He barks orders with the faux confidence of a man who desperately wants to be perceived as a strong leader, constantly concerned with projecting an image of power and masculinity while being painfully, obviously inept. His speeches are filled with empty bluster, his decisions are driven by vanity, and like any good authoritarian, he surrounds himself with sycophants and yes-men, including a personal propagandist who rewrites history in real-time to make him seem like a visionary. If this sounds eerily similar to the current occupant of the White House, that may not be a coincidence; Ruffalo is one of Hollywood’s most outspoken liberal voices, and a staunch Trump critic, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that he drew some inspiration from the President, much in the same way Sam Rockwell channeled George W. Bush in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s a performance both hilarious and chilling, a reminder that history’s worst leaders are often just mediocre men desperate to seem important.
The supporting cast is rounded out by a few more standouts, including Naomi Ackie as Nasha, Mickey’s no-nonsense security agent girlfriend who starts to see the cracks in the system, and Steven Yeun (always a welcome presence) as Timo, Mickey’s childhood friend (in the loosest possible definition) turned opportunistic crewmate. Toni Colette also steals a few scenes as Kenneth’s wife Ylfa, whose most defining characteristic is a bizarre obsession with crafting exotic sauces. The film’s production design is another highlight, with Fiona Crombie (The Favourite) creating a spaceship that’s all exposed wires, malfunctioning machinery, and dimly lit corridors — a far cry from the sleek, utopian visions of space colonization often found in Hollywood, and a rather fitting visual metaphor for the systems of power Bong loves to dismantle in his films.
As one might expect, Bong brings his signature blend of genre-mixing and tonal whiplash to the story. Mickey 17 is at once a sci-fi survival thriller, a corporate satire, a buddy comedy (even if the buddies are just two versions of the same person), and an existential meditation on identity and self-worth. It’s also deeply absurd, often feeling like a cousin to Fallout (both the games and the recent series adaptation) with its retro-futuristic dystopian aesthetic and wry, cynical humor. There are even shades of Starship Troopers, particularly in its depiction of propaganda and a society willing to sacrifice individuals in the name of a greater, often ill-defined cause.
Of course, lurking beneath the humor and action is another of Bong’s razor-sharp critiques of capitalism, particularly its ability to dehumanize workers and reduce people to mere cogs in a machine. The concept of the Expendable is both literal and allegorical: Mickey is useful only so long as he serves a function, and his suffering isn’t just tolerated — it’s expected. The more versions of himself he sees discarded, the more he begins to understand how little the system values him. The film makes the argument, both bleakly and hilariously, that capitalism’s logical endpoint isn’t just exploiting workers, it’s rendering them indistinguishable, interchangeable, and, ultimately, expendable (again, not the Stallone kind). The system doesn’t care about the people who keep it running; it barely acknowledges them at all. Even the way Mickey’s fellow crew members treat him shifts over time, from initial sympathy to complete indifference, as his deaths become just another routine part of their day. The film is at its most biting when it examines how easily people justify cruelty when it’s wrapped in the language of efficiency and progress.
But while Mickey 17 is unmistakably a Bong Joon-ho takedown of the systems that exploit and discard human lives, it also feels like one of his most hopeful films. If Parasite was about the inescapable cycle of economic disparity, and Snowpiercer about the violent struggle to upend it, then Mickey 17 is about the small, stubborn act of asserting one’s own worth. It’s a story about survival, not just physically, but philosophically; it’s not just about staying alive, but about refusing to be erased. In a landscape where big-budget sci-fi often feels like a vehicle for spectacle over substance, Mickey 17 is refreshingly human, and like the best of us, it’s messy, weird, and sometimes downright ridiculous — but never hollow. If Mickey begins the film resigned to his fate, by the end, he’s learned the most radical act of all: to want something better.
Find more of our Berlinale 2025 coverage at this link.