When Edward Ashton’s sci-fi novel Mickey 7 came out in 2022, and its sequel Antimatter Blues was released in 2023, I gobbled up the two books and enjoyed how they blended space exploration and planetary civilization with philosophical questions on identity, the power structure, and the us-them dichotomy. Hearing that Bong Joon Ho would be handling the film adaptation made me very curious and guardedly excited, as this would be his first film since his Oscar-winning Parasite of 2019. 

Guardedly excited because the books would entail radical decisions on bringing the stories to film. Would you turn it campy and comedic, verging on the ridiculous; or play it straight-faced and leave it to the audience to decide how satirical and absurdist the treatment is. The Mickey 17 we get to watch is a curious amalgam of Snowpiercer (2013), with the marked classes and social hierarchy, and that of Okja (2017), with the fantastic anthropomorphized creatures. As for tone, it’s typical Bong Joon-Ho, as there’s an establishing tone, but we get the rug pulled out from under us as it changes to something darker and political after the midpoint.  

Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) is an ‘expendable’, a down on his luck doofus who partnered with the wrong people on Earth, and had to then volunteer for space colonizing to escape a violent loan shark. With no unique set of skills, he fails to read the fine print and signs up to be an ‘expendable’. They’re given the tasks no one else is given because they’ve agreed to die numerous times, and be ‘reprinted’, with memories intact. Naomi Ackie is Nasha, a soldier and Mickey’s soulmate/lover. Steven Yuen is Timo, the scheming person Mickey partnered with on Earth, and is now a pilot on the new planet. 

Leading the planetary expedition is a Trump-like figure named Kenneth Marshall (an over the top Mark Ruffalo), and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), a devious and controlling person. It’s no coincidence that there’s something very Roald Dahl in how these two attack their roles. It’s like imagining the worst of the parents of Matilda, and what if the couple had absolute power and ruled over a kingdom in outer space. 

What is admirable to observe is Bong Joon Ho’s talent for world-building. Whether it’s the claustrophobic confines of the space station, the icy, hostile planet they live in, or even the indigenous creatures who call the earth their own, there’s always something riveting happening on screen. We know there’s an element of absurdity, of SciFi imagination gone wild; but we’re still ready to be taken on the ride.

The film is best watched on an SM IMAX screen, and it opened in cinemas on March 5, ahead of its run in the USA. The tone and treatment have a little goofiness, so this is not a parasite. It’s no secret that at some point we get two Mickey’s sharing the screen, so there’s a very black and white aspect to how Bong makes Pattinson portray the two. But there is enough for us to let the time whiz by, and to be sucked into the masterful story-telling that’s on display. Now I’m wondering what his next film project will be.