Mickey 17 review: Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s follow-up with Robert Pattinson could’ve been weirder

You know what’s better than Robert Pattinson? Two Robert Pattinsons!

The Tenet and Good Time actor pulls double duty in Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s follow-up, Mickey 17.

Wacky and wildly entertaining, Mickey 17 really gives the talented and very watchable Pattinson space to create two distinct versions of the same man, a poor schmuck whose life has literally been declared “expendable”.

Adapted from a novel by Edward Ashton, the sci-fi film is set three decades into future where space travel is now a thing

Mickey Barnes (Pattinson) and his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) decide to join a colonisation mission to escape a vicious loan shark on Earth. The only way Mickey is accepted into the program is to sign up as an expendable, someone who is designated for the most dangerous jobs and experiments.

Every time he dies, his body is reprinted by a machine and his memories are uploaded into his new vessel. When we meet Mickey, he’s already the 17th iteration of himself.

The hiccup is Mickey 17, on a mission on an ice planet, doesn’t die as expected and he wanders back into his bunk only to discover Mickey 18 has already been printed. Multiples are absolutely not allowed, which seems at first an odd choice given the lack of ethical boundaries of human printing.

There is a backstory to it, as there is to many of the aspects to this strange and yet recognisable world.

The mission is led, in theory, by Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a failed politician who engenders a cult-like following but is really being puppeted by his cleverer and sauce-obsessed wife Ylfa (Toni Collette) and assistant Preston (Daniel Henshall).

Bong said he drew inspiration from historical dictators rather than present-day political figures for Ruffalo’s character, but there is no mistaking the nods to the current American president, from the intonation of his speech and the physicality of his gestures to the red hats worn by Marshall’s most ardent supporters.

There are different ways to view Mickey 17 and one is to just take it as it is, an entertaining popcorn movie with madcap characters, shocking turns, imaginative set-pieces and a pacy story that moves you with it.

The other way is to see all the layers beneath its industrial surface, what it’s saying about the expendability, perhaps not literal, of the so-called grunt workers in a capitalist economy, whose entire purpose is to serve someone else’s enrichment.

There’s a sequence in which we discover several ways the previous Mickeys died and while it’s played for macabre comedic effect, it is also grim. He’s no one to the elite who relish in playing games and pleasure while mandating sacrifice for the greater good from everyone else.

The release of Mickey 17 has been delayed for over a year and rumours were abound that the studio, Warner Bros, and particularly its big boss, David Zaslav, were unhappy with the edit. When suits start meddling in art, it usually makes one nervous.

But Bong retained final cut rights in his contract so the movie that’s released is at least one version of what he wanted audiences to see.

You still wonder if there wasn’t an earlier cut that was much weirder, spiky and bolder, in the vein of his other works or even the likes of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Delicatessen or the Coen brothers’ Barton Fink.

If anything, maybe Mickey 17 is a little too accessible, with a mushy, beating heart that is, ultimately, a love story between the title character and Nasha (Naomi Ackie), a security agent. It’s surprisingly sweet.

Rating: 3.5/5

Mickey 17 is in cinemas on March 6