Berlinale 2025 review: ‘Mickey 17’ – Robert Pattinsons… in spaaaace!

It’s been six long years since South Korean director Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, a wait not made easier by countless delays for his return to the sci-fi genre. But now it’s finally here and for his third English-language feature, he’s decided to adapt the novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton. It may not be his finest, but it’s certainly the funniest film he’s done so far.

Set in 2054, we meet Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) as he’s about to die. No biggie though. This is par for the course.

Let’s rewind a little. We find out that this hapless sweetie owed money to a terrifying loan shark back on Earth. Mickey and his business partner Timo (Steven Yeun) tried to set up a macaron business, believing they’d be bigger than burgers. Sadly, the French delicacies lost that war.

It did lead to some darling merchandising though, with ‘Macarons are not a sin’ t-shirts, so that’s something.

To escape the chainsawed goons, the dessert entrepreneurs sign on for an interplanetary expedition masterminded by failed politician turned populist-plutocrat Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his gastronomically fixated wife Ylfa (Toni Collette).

Mickey stupidly agrees to be an “expendable” without reading the full application. The large print giveth and the fine print taketh away, and all that. He signs his life away to become a guinea pig sent out on repeated suicide missions. When he snuffs it – via radiation poisoning, virus infection, you name it – his body is chucked into a furnace and a new version of Mickey is bio-printed with all his memories reinstalled. Live. Die. Repeat.

The snag is that the 17th incarnation of Mickey is left for dead in a deep crevasse on one mission by Timo (“Nice knowing you, have a nice death, see you tomorrow!”), leading to the creation of his 18th replica. This makes him a “multiple” – which is a breach of protocol and must end with permanent deletion.

His tripping girlfriend Nasha (Naomi Ackie) sees threesome potential; Mickey 17 tries to come up with a plan so that both versions can co-exist; Mickey 18 – a more ruthless clone – is out to seek some retribution.

Snag number 2 comes when the space colony are faced with Creepers, the insect-alien race described by Ylfa as “croissants dipped in shit” and which stand in the way of Marshall’s “pure white planet.”

Unlike Ashton’s 2022 novel, Mickey 17 isn’t so much interested in what a soul can be and what it means to live. The ethical, philosophical and even religious implications are mentioned, but director Bong is keener to have a bit of fun. And so are the cast.

Pattinson is brilliant here, bringing a certain goofball sensitivity to a role Jim Carrey would have hammed up to no end in the 90s. His stoic humility in the face of death is one of the film’s best and most tragic jokes, as is the insensitive question he constantly bats away: “What’s it like to die?” He aces playing both the gentle and dopey Mickey 17 (with squeaky voice to match his often heartbreaking resignation in the face of death) and the far more antagonistic Mickey 18, channelling Buster Keaton all the way through.

Elsewhere, Ruffalo has a blast as the egomaniacal villain with fanatical supporters, portraying Marshall as a panto composite of the space-obsessed Elon Musk and the ratings goblin Donald Trump. His caricature is matched by that of his partner in ham, Collette, who is also having a great time as the brains-behind-the-operation wife who believes that sauce “is the litmus test of civilisation.”

Given current times, it’s impossible not to see the rather obvious echoes to contemporary worries and direct references to real-life figures – especially when it comes to authoritarianism, xenophobia and the existential malaise posed by late-stage capitalism.  

However, director Bong doesn’t seem to be all that interested in political commentary or too much subtlety. There are moments when you wished that certain superfluous plot strands were streamlined or altogether disposed of like a Mickey iteration, in order to leave room for some deeper and darker musings about dying for a living. If you can’t die, can you truly live? But again, this isn’t that kind of movie. The loose and frequently foulmouthed corporate satire echoes some of Bong’s earlier films, specifically Okja’s oddball humour and pro-environment / pro-animal stance when it comes to the indigenous slugs populating the icy planet, as well as Snowpiercer’s chilly dystopian setting. But really, it’s the director channelling Duncan Jones’ Moon by way of Starship Troopers.

Sounds good, right? It is… but it’s also undeniably messy and like Ruffalo’s Trump takedown, the schtick loses steam as the runtime progresses.

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Baggy as it is though, Mickey 17 is a broad strokes futurist satire that works. It’s clear there will be some snootiness coming its way considering it follows in the footsteps of the much sharper social satire Parasite; but if you’re in for a delirious space oddity, you’ll bug out!

Mickey 17 premiers at the 75th Berlinale in the Berlinale Special Gala section. It is released in theatres in March.