Mickey 17 movie review: Bong Joon Ho film has too many ideas mixed up for one clear picture

That little jig that Kenneth does and the hand gestures he is fond of making while launching forth into one of his speeches leave no doubt which orange-mop politician he is marshalling. That this Trumpian character would have ambitions to colonise space like First Buddy Elon Musk is also no surprise then.

A down-and-out Mickey (Pattinson), desperate to escape loan sharks, secures a seat on this spaceship by offering to be its ‘Expendable’. Essentially, this means he is the guinea pig, experimented on and sent out into hostile environments to test things that would kill normal humans. Every time he dies, he is “reprinted” back, via technology that the film thankfully doesn’t get too much into. We are into Mickey No. 17 when the story really kicks in.

But as it turns out, there isn’t much of that, with many interesting strands unsatisfactorily explored. For example, the most interesting one, involving an “elite agent” on the ship, Nasha (Ackie), who for some reason that remains inexplicable to even Mickey, takes a fancy to him. Ackie is quite good as the brave, funny, gutsy, even reckless Nasha, and a spark lights up every time she is on the screen.

Especially when, by a twist of circumstances, two Mickeys, 17 and 18, come to co-exist at the same time. The possibilities Nasha thinks of, including a three-some, and the subversion Mickey 18 and she promise suggest a thrilling adventure that never comes about.

Pattinson shifts adeptly between the two sides of Mickey, with No. 17 being meek and submissive and No. 18 aggressive and bullying. Ruffalo and Collette, both good actors, are cartoonish caricatures, while Yeun, a natural charmer, is just wasted. Given the range Yeun has displayed before, from comic to manic to plain bitter (TV series Beef, Minari), could he have been better as Mickey? Makes you wonder.

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The last 30-plus minutes of the film involve aliens, and conversations about who is the original inhabitant and who is the trespasser, and some vague talk about immigrants. Some of the scenes here are beautifully shot and imagined, with creatures pining amidst a raging snowstorm, but in the overall narrative that Bong is going for, this seems an extended aside.

Plus, Mickey 17 cheats on a question that engages not just everyone on this spaceship but home planet Earth and the wider universe. ‘What does it feel like to die?’ they ask Mickeys 1 to 17. Sixteen deaths later, all he has to say is that it is “painful” – nothing more.

Mickey 17 movie director: Bong Joon Ho
Mickey 17 movie cast: Robert Pattinson, Steven Yeun, Naomie Ackie, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Anamaria Vartolomei
Mickey 17 movie rating: 2.5 stars