A dystopian sci-fi satire that stars Robert Pattinson twice

Mickey 17 is the latest film from the South Korean writer-director Bong Joon-ho, who won an Oscar for Parasite and made Snowpiercer and Okja. It’s a dystopian sci-fi satire starring Robert Pattinson twice over (all will be explained) but while it initially kicks some decent ideas around, it eventually descends into a cartoonish, sub-Armando Iannucci comic caper with, as far as I could ascertain, nothing fresh to say. It’s not the biggest disappointment I’ve had in my life but it’s up there.

The film is set some time in the future and Pattinson plays Mickey 17, a crew member on a space-colonization mission who, in the opening sequence, has fallen into a deep crevice on the ice planet that is Niflheim. (I’ve always had my reservations about Niflheim; ask anybody.) He is about to freeze to death but Mickey is accustomed to dying. He is an “expendable,” a person who is awarded the most dangerous jobs because if he dies, he’s immediately regenerated via 3D-printing technology with most of his memories intact. There have been sixteen previous iterations and he’s weary of it now. But how can he quit? Which iteration even is the real Mickey? These are some of the ideas that ultimately go unexplored.

The first act is strangely uncinematic as it relies on Mickey telling his story via an exposition-laden voiceover, which I always consider cheating. His backstory emerges as this: on Earth, some years ago, he’d set up a macaron business that went bust which led to him being pursued by murderous loan sharks. (I have always had my reservations about the macaron business.) As the loan sharks promise to hunt him to the ends of the Earth, he thinks it might be best if he flees Earth altogether. He signs up as an expendable without reading the small print — he’s not the smartest tool in the box — and quickly discovers that immortality, if we can call it that, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. “I really hate dying,” he tells us. Some of his deaths have been the result of medical experiments involving, for example, unthinkable levels of radiation. “Tell us when your skin starts to blister, Mickey. Tell us when you go blind…” Grisly, but the jocular tone tells us not to take it seriously, and we don’t.

It’s not the biggest disappointment I’ve had in my life but it’s up there

The action is mostly set on the spaceship to Niflheim. The expedition’s commander is Kenneth Marshall, played by an over-the-top Mark Ruffalo in full-on populist-fascist mode. Marshall’s wife (Toni Colette, also over the top) is equally bonkers and cruel. They are determined to establish a colony that is “a pure white planet for superior people” even though this planet is beset by “creepers,” which burrow under the ice and look like giant earwigs with mandibles. I actually found them peculiarly endearing. (Their babies are adorable; legs like little chipolatas.) But creepers are the least of Mickey’s problems. The problem this time is that he hasn’t died. He has been presumed dead, however, and a Mickey 18 has been printed off. Hence two Pattinsons. And while Mickey 17 is a chump, Mickey 18 is a vicious bully. How come, when they have been downloaded with the same data? I didn’t get it, but unlike most sci-fi movies at least this one never puts its glaring inconsistencies down to “quantum flux,” so we must be thankful for that.

The story is based on a novel by Edward Ashton, whose starting point was philosophy’s “teletransportation paradox” (look it up). The film doesn’t touch on this, however, unlike Duncan Jones’s brilliantly smart Moon (2009). The satire — which takes a pop at everything from colonialism to corporate greed — is mostly heavy-handed and never funny enough. And though Pattinson imbues his Mickeys with a certain amount of pathos and heft, he’s not a character you can care about. Moon, I still remember. This, I’ve practically forgotten already.