With a prolific career under his belt, acclaimed director Bong Joon-ho—best known for the Oscar-winning Parasite (2019)—returns to the big screen with his sci-fi thriller Mickey 17, based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey7.
The film follows Mickey Barnes, portrayed by Robert Pattinson, a man sent on an expedition to colonize the frozen world of Niflheim. As an “Expendable,” Mickey is disposable—each time he dies, he is “reprinted” with most of his memories intact. At the start of the film, he’s already on his 17th iteration, thus, Mickey 17.
This expedition is led by the erratic Kenneth Marshall, a failed politician-turned-commander played by Mark Ruffalo. Marshall serves as a satirical nod to historical and contemporary political figures, with many drawing parallels between the character and current president Donald Trump.
On the surface, Mickey 17 is a futuristic adventure to another planet with some high-stakes survival, but Bong’s signature satirical bite clues viewers into the film’s deeper meaning: What meaning does a life have in a system where people can be so easily replaced?
Bong’s exploration of expendability feels particularly timely. With the rise of generative AI and growing concerns about automation replacing jobs—including in the filmmaking industry—directors and actors are taking risks and pushing to create something completely irreplaceable.
“I ask myself every night, how can I write a screenplay that AI could not? How can we outsmart AI?” said Bong. “I want to become a writer who writes one screenplay a year that AI could never replicate.”
Alongside Bong’s vibrant and chaotic directorial style, Robert Pattinson’s portrayal of Mickey underlines this theme. His performance—marked with a bizarre high-pitched voice, which he claims to have “[based on] Steve Buscemi[‘s performance in Fargo] by accident”—adds an offbeat, truly human unpredictability that no machine could replicate.
The film’s central question is brought to the forefront when a second iteration, Mickey 18, is accidentally created when Mickey is believed to be dead. Being confronted by another living, breathing version of himself has Mickey also confronting his own disposability. If he can simply be replicated, who really is he?
Through this, Mickey 17 becomes more than just a simple spectacle of an entertaining sci-fi story. It serves as Bong’s meditation on our modern world’s treatment of identity, labor, and the fight to assert our individuality in a world that increasingly devalues it.
“Mickey faces harsh conditions and contempt,” Bong said, “but at the end of the film, he remains unbroken. That’s the message I wanted to convey. I hope it offers a small consolation to those who watch the film.”
In many ways, Mickey 17 is a story about resistance; resistance against a system that treats individuals as disposable much like many industries today, against the forces that seek to erase the uniqueness of each and every person, and against the fear that one’s existence might not matter.
The film, through a creative blend of existential dread faced by its characters, dark humor to make the struggles that we face less frightening, and Bong’s signature genre-bending storytelling, asks its audience to consider what truly makes a person irreplaceable.
As artificial intelligence, mass production, and automation continue to shape today’s industrialized world, Mickey 17 serves as a stark reminder that the individuality, creativity, and resilience of humanity are not so easily replicated.
Bong’s latest work doesn’t just question these contemporary issues—it dares to push back against them, offering a glimpse into human perseverance that resonates far beyond the frozen setting of Niflheim.
Mickey 17 is showing in theaters and will be available for on demand purchase on April 8.
