March 5, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Bong Joo Ho
Culture Representation: Taking place in 2054, on the fictional planet of Niflheim, the sci-fi comedy/drama film “Mickey 17” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An “expendable” worker, who is regenerated as a clone after he dies, gets involved in an “us versus them” conflict with the oppressive elites who control Niflheim society.
Culture Audience: “Mickey 17” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Bong Joo Ho and sci-fi movies that take familiar topics and put them in a unique setting.
“Mickey 17” gets messy when it crams and juggles varying ideas and tones. Despite these flaws, this sci-fi movie can be engaging because of the performances and the movie’s dark comedy about sociopolitical issues and technology. “Mickey 17” is both a satire and a warning of what life could be like if humans populated another planet and lived in a cult-like society.
Written and directed by Bong Joo Ho, “Mickey 17” is his highly anticipated follow-up to 2019’s Oscar-winning South Korean drama “Parasite,” the first non-English-language movie to win Best Picture. “Mickey 17” had its world premiere at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. “Mickey 17” is better than the average sci-fi movie but it’s not as Oscar-worthy as “Parasite,” simply because the screenplay for “Mickey 17” tends to wander, with important characters disappearing with no explanation for large chunks of the film.
Bong’s movies often have themes of the divides between social classes, with lower classes rising up in some kind of rebellion against the privileged elite upper classes. In “Mickey 17,” these social-class conflicts don’t go away just because people move to a new planet that is populated by humans who previously lived on Earth. Most of the story takes place on a planet called Niflheim, where the terrain is snowy and icy all year.
“Mickey 17” takes place in the year 2054—four-and-a-half years after the humans from Earth arrived by a giant spaceship to inhabit Niflheim. The humans still live on this spaceship, presumably because it’s too cold to have regular housing. But it’s also a way for the humans to be easier controlled and surveilled by the totalitarian leaders in charge of this new society.
The beginning of “Mickey 17” shows title character Mickey Barnes (played by Robert Pattinson), the story’s narrator, is lying down on the ground and nearly covered in snow. Mickey has severely injured his leg from a fall on down an icy crevasse. Mickey can’t get up because of this injury.
A man named Timo (played by Steven Yeun), who’s armed with a gun, appears above the crevasse and asks Mickey, “You haven’t died yet? They’re going to reprint you out tomorrow anyway. What’s it like to die?” Timo doesn’t get the answer to that question because a giant creature (about 20 feet tall that looks like a combination of a walrus and a “Dune” sand worm) suddenly appears and seems to swallow Mickey.
The movie then shows that Mickey is back on the spaceship, inside of a body scan chamber. When he comes out of the chamber, he is actually a 3-D printed scan clone of himself. His previous memories are uploaded to his brain. Mickey is kind-hearted but simple-minded and socially awkward. It’s possible for something to go wrong in the cloning process, and his clone could have a different personality.
In voiceover narration, Mickey explains what’s going on here. The version of Mickey who is the narrator is version 17, also known as Mickey 17. Flashbacks show much of what happened as Mickey 17 tells the story. People who aren’t inclined to like science fiction might feel disconnected or confused by a great deal of this movie.
Mickey says that he and Timo know each other because they were friends when they lived on Earth in a U.S. city that is never named. According to Mickey (who now calls Timo a “shitty friend”), Timo convinced Mickey to invest with him to open a macaron store, which ended up being a commercial failure. Mickey and Timo had borrowed money from a loan shark named Darius Blank (played by Ian Hanmore) to open the store.
Timo and Mickey are heavily in debt to Darius, who wants immediate payment. Darius sends some thugs to kidnap and beat up Timo and Mickey, who are told that they will be murdered if they don’t pay off their debt to Darius very soon. Mickey and Timo have no doubt that this threat will be carried out, because they’ve seen the torture that Darius and his goons have inflicted on others, but Mickey and Timo still don’t have the money to pay the debt.
It’s around this time that a former U.S. congressman named Kenneth Marshall (played by Mark Ruffalo), who has a cult-like following, has made international news for launching a spaceship that will take a select number of people to Niflheim, a planet previously not inhabited by humans. An unnamed religious group is believed to be funding this in-demand migration. It’s mentioned in the movie that Kenneth lost his two most recent elections. Clearly, migrating to Niflheim is a way for Kenneth to reinvent himself as a powerful leader of this new society.
Kenneth has a Lady Macbeth-type wife named Yifa (played by Toni Collette), who is the real schemer and manipulator of this couple. Kenneth is mostly a blustering buffoon who does what Yifa advises or orders him to do, but Kenneth puts up a front that he’s the one who’s really in charge. Kenneth and Yifa are treated like famous royalty on Niflheim, where Kenneth stars on a live TV show called “Tonight With Kenneth Marshall.” Kenneth and Yifa take full advantage of this celebrity worship by abusing their power and inflicting cruel punishment on those who disobey their orders.
It doesn’t take long for Mickey and Timo to sign up to go on this migration to Niflheim, in order to escape their troubles on Earth. The movie implies that almost everyone who wants to be part of this migration signs up for similar reasons, so that they can start a new life on another planet. Mickey makes a mistake that changes the course of his existence on Niflheim.
On the application form to go to Nifleim, Mickey checks the box that lists him as an “expendable”—a low-life human who will allow the Niflheim government to do whatever it wants to his body. Even when given a chance to change his application so he won’t be classified as an expendable, Mickey declines to do so, mainly because he thinks he’ll have a better chance of his application getting approved if he’s listed as an expendable.
Mickey explains in a voiceover that after he arrived in Niflheim, he found out that expendables are exploited to do all types of dangerous explorations and scientific experiments that could kill them. However, Niflheim has a cloning machine (the body scan chamber) that can do 3-D clone printouts of people who previously died. This technology was illegal on Earth but is legal on Niflheim. Expendables such as Mickey are revived as clones after they die, with their previous memories uploaded into their brains.
On Niflheim, the expendables are treated as the lowest of the low in the social class hierarchy. Mickey is living a bleak and lonely existence where he has died and has been printed out as a clone multiple times. Sad sack Mickey thinks it’s his deserved “punishment” because he feels a lot of guilt for accidentally causes his mother’s death when he was 5 years old: While he was a front-seat passenger in the car that she was driving, he pushed a brake button in the car that caused the car to crash. (The actual crash is never shown in the movie.)
One bright spot in Mickey’s Niflheim life happens when the original Mickey Barnes meets Nasha Barridge (played by Naomi Ackie), an assertive and feisty government employee who works as a soldier, a police officer and a firefighter. Timo is also some type of government soldier and sometimes works in a group with Mickey, Nasha and two female soldiers who are best friends: Kai Katz (played by Anamaria Vartolomei) and Jennifer Chilton (payed by Ellen Robertson). Timo isn’t seen again for most of the movie until a crucial part of the story. Mickey’s and Timo’s lives before Niflheim are shown in the movie, but Nasha’s life when she was on Earth is never revealed.
One day, in the public cafeteria where the “working class” residents gather to eat, almost everyone in the cafeteria goes into a star-struck frenzy when Kenneth and Nifa make a surprise appearance. Mickey and Nasha are the only two people in the room who don’t go gaga over Kenneth and Nifa. Nasha and Mickey lock eyes across the room, as two people do in movies where you know those two people are going to hook up.
And sure enough, Nasha becomes Mickey become best friends and loved. Nasha stays loyal to Mickey, even when he has died and is cloned over and over. Nasha is also very possessive of Mickey. In another cafeteria scene, Kai somewhat flirts with Mickey while she’s seated next to him. Timo is seated on the other side of Mickey.
When Nasha sees Kai talking flirtatiously with Mickey, Nasha immediately pushes Timo aside so she can get his seat. Nasha then grabs Mickey and starts making out with him. Nasha’s unspoken message is clear to Kai: “This is my man. Stay away from him.”
Meanwhile, Kenneth has decided that the walrus-like creatures that live outside the spaceship are a threat, even though there’s no proof that these creatures kill humans. Kenneth decides that these creatures are to be called “creepers.” A storyline involving the creepers takes up the last third of the movie.
Niflheim has a law that no two clones can exist at the same time. As already revealed in the “Mickey 17” trailer, another clone of Mickey (Mickey 18) gets created when Mickey 17 is still alive, which causes havoc in Mickey 17’s world. Pattison does some of his best acting in the movie when Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 are interacting with each other. This clone drama, the creepers, the love story of Mickey and Nasha, and Niflheim’s sociopolitical and environmental issues make for an abundance of storylines in “Mickey 17.” Sometimes these storylines are woven together skillfully; other times, they become jumbled.
“Mickey 17” has plenty to showcase when it comes to the inner thoughts of Mickey and his clones who are shown in the movie. However, other characters in the movie are either caricatures (Kenneth and Nifa) or are underdeveloped (everyone else except Mickey). It’s to the credit of the talented cast members that they bring these characters to life to make viewers interested. That interest can spark viewer curiosity about these memorable characters, but many questions about these characters are never answered.
Visually, “Mickey 17” will delight sci-fi fans because the world of Niflheim looks realistic, even though Niflheim is an awful place to live under the oppressive rule of Kenneth and Nifa. Because “Mickey 17” is another Bong movie where there are conflicts between the “haves” and “have nots,” there’s an inevitable showdown that is the suspenseful highlight of the movie. Some scenes in “Mickey 17” are dark and depressing, while other scenes are absurdly comedic and heartwarming. “Mickey 17” refuses to be pigeonholed into one consistent tone, which some viewers might see as an unforgivable flaw, while other viewers might see as part of the movie’s charm.
Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Mickey 17” in U.S. cinemas on March 7, 2025.
