The Sci-Fi Satire Mickey 17 Might Be a Classic—Someday
Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s latest film stars Robert Pattinson as a guinea-pig-for-hire who takes on a Trumpy tyrant.
Pattinson is delightful playing multiple Mickeys in Mickey 17.
Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
“Hey Mickey, what’s it feel like to die?”
The title character of Mickey 17, Bong Joon-ho’s silly-serious sci-fi satire, his follow-up to 2019’s Oscar-winning megahit Parasite, gets this a lot. He’s an expendable, a person so desperate for work he’s agreed to be endlessly “reprinted”—and endlessly killed doing super-risky jobs. When Timo (Steven Yeun) asks this question, Mickey (Robert Pattinson) is lying on his back at the bottom of an ice pit. Looking up at his best friend, who’s dangling a rope that’s just too short to reach him, Mickey sighs and furrows his brow. There’s no time for metaphysics; a gruesome, hungry-looking alien has just turned up.