Mickey 17: ‘charming space oddity’ that’s a ‘sparky one-off’

Six years after “Parasite”, his “global smash”, made history at the Oscars, Bong Joon-ho is back with a “boisterous” sci-fi comedy, said Kevin Maher in The Times. From “space movie pastiches” to “corporate spoofs” and “religious caricatures”, the South Korean director has squeezed a lot into “Mickey 17”. “All this, and Mark Ruffalo as an intergalactic Donald Trump!”

Set in the 2050s, the action follows Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), a “luckless patsy” who signs up to become an “expendable” (human clone) and perform dangerous tasks during a “long-haul space mission” to the planet Niflheim. Each time he dies, he has the “disquieting knowledge that he’ll emerge reborn, hours later”, fresh from a “human printing machine”.

At the start of the film, Mickey is already in his 17th incarnation. And, to complicate matters, the “accidental creation” of Mickey 18 before his death means the two clones must live side by side. The “ever-versatile” Pattinson pulls off both “expendables” with “remarkable aplomb”, playing 17 as a “whimpering Steve Buscemi type” and 18 as a “surly, classic-era” Robert De Niro. “He is the movie’s strongest draw.”

Joon-ho’s “stark yet oddly life-affirming anti-capitalist” film explores the “query at the very heart of our current existence”, said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent. “What’s the point of living in a world built to make us feel worthless?”

“No one is better” than Joon-ho at “using the rules of genre filmmaking against his audience”, continually finding clever ways to “subvert our expectations” and “surprise” us, said Helen O’Hara in Empire. From the trailer, you’d expect “another epic tale of revolt against a corrupt regime” – and “there is a bit of that” but there is also an unexpected “sense of romance and even optimism about the future”.

The film is “visually spectacular” with some “sharp” moments of “pathos and horror”, said Peter Bradshaw in The Observer. However, at two hours 17 minutes, it’s somewhat “baggy”, and at times, its “narrative tendons are a bit slack”.

While the film “earns points for sheer oddity”, too much of it “turns out to be sloppy, shrill and preachy – ironically, the same things that make Mark Ruffalo’s deliberately Trump-styled villain so grating”, said Peter Debruge in Variety.

By the time Pattinson becomes a “quasi-Spartacus figure” for the “clan of giant, woolly grubs” living on Niflheim, you’ll either be “all in or halfway to the car park”, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph. But there’s “no denying that, in a sea of similarity, it’s a sparky one-off”.

Yes, it can be “goofy and a little inconsistent”, said O’Hara in Empire, but “it’s also funny” and “more plausible than we might like. A charming space oddity for these unusual times.”