MICKEY 17 is a 2025 science fiction black comedy film written, produced, and directed by Bong Joon Ho, based on the 2022 novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton. The film stars Robert Pattinson in the title role, alongside Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo. The movie slipped onto the schedule after our monthly “What’s On” posting for the month, so we definitely want to bring it to your attention now. It debuted on HBO on SATURDAY, MAY 24, and on Max the day prior. Bong Joon Ho is certainly an international cinematic mastermind and the experience will surely illustrate that mastery.
So, what is going on in the sci-fi world for the lead character, Mickey Barnes? In 2050, Barnes and his friend Timo (Yeun) join a spaceship crew to colonize the ice-planet Niflheim. Timo becomes a shuttle pilot, while Mickey joins as an “Expendable”, a controversial job involving extremely dangerous tasks, with death resulting in a new clone of him with restored memories being created through a process called “reprinting”. Obviously, to make sense of the movie’s title, Barnes has reprinted more than once. When they arrive at their destination, the inhabitants of the planet, Creepers, offer resistance and Timo leaves Barnes for dead. Thus, Mickey 18 is printed, but Mickey 17 proves not to be dead!
How Barnes deals with Timo, an illegal duplicate(multiple prints are against protocol), the alien Creepers, and his right to exist all come into play in this R-rated work. It runs for 1 hour and 17 minutes. One interesting fact we discovered is that director Bong Joon-ho insisted on filming certain key scenes without Pattinson knowing which version of Mickey he was playing until just before shooting. This method was meant to capture the confusion and existential dread of a clone struggling with his own identity, leading to some of the film’s most unsettling and raw performances. RT scores it as follows:
