I don’t yet quite get Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho. I loved his 2019 Parasite, which took home three Oscars, including Best Picture.  But 2013’s Snowpiercer left me cold. Mickey 17 splits the difference.

The title character, a crewmember on an extended voyage to colonize an ice planet, is called an “expendable,” which means he is assigned to the most dangerous, often suicidal missions. He has died 16 times, surprising no one; it is after all his job description. The colony’s scientists learn from each death, and an advanced tech “human printer” simply churns out a new Mickey clone, memories and all. Things get complicated when he is mistakenly assumed lost and dead, and Mickey 18 is created. 

If Robert Pattinson was looking for a way to atone for his role in the moronic YA Twilight flicks, consider that mission accomplished. Hell, he did that when he out-weirded Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse. It’s a career best for Pattinson, and great, odd fun to watch.  

Balancing that, however, and nearly sinking this funny, thought-provoking movie is the asinine performance by Mark Ruffalo as a megalomaniacal Trumpian “visionary.” I get it that he (and his wife, played by Toni Collette) are supposed to be comedic caricatures, but their hard-to-watch, over-the-top mugging actually dulls the satire. 

Bong’s specialty is in lampooning capitalist dystopias and the vanity of power but also in celebrating people finding connections and love in the most adverse of conditions. This one is a bit overstuffed and scattershot, and it may fall short of the director’s vision of joining satire with sci-fi, but it’s never less than entertaining. A well-crafted, overlong ride with a rather sweetly hopeful denouement.  (137 min)