Mickey is an expendable worker. When one version dies, another is printed with the same memories. It is an absurd premise with a nasty little question inside it: if the replacement remembers everything you remember, what exactly makes you the original?
Bong Joon Ho treats that question as material for satire rather than a philosophical lecture, and the result is deliberately uneven in a way that becomes part of its charm.
Pattinson commits to the weirdness .
The film needs its central performance to handle repetition without becoming repetitive. Pattinson finds small differences between versions of Mickey and lets embarrassment do much of the comedy.
If a corporation can replace you tomorrow, it has already decided what you are worth today.
Naomi Ackie brings a steadier emotional line to the story, while Mark Ruffalo appears to understand that his character belongs in a different movie and enjoys every second of it.
The satire is deliberately blunt .
Bong is not subtle about power, labor and people who believe hierarchy makes them important. Sometimes the jokes land perfectly. Sometimes the target is so obvious that the scene almost stops moving.
But the bluntness gives the film momentum. It is less interested in building a flawless world than in poking holes in the one it has built.
A strange film in the best way .
Mickey 17 is not as emotionally precise as Bong's best work, but it has the rarer quality of feeling unmistakably authored.
It is funny, ugly, sincere and occasionally very sad. The combination is more valuable than polish.
