In 2050, Mickey Barnes escapes a violent loan shark by joining a colonization mission to the frozen world Niflheim. His friend Timo becomes a pilot, while Mickey takes the perilous role of “Expendable,” assigned to lethal jobs knowing his body can be reprinted with most of his memories intact after each death. Over four years en route, many Mickeys die in experiments that help the crew adapt to the planet’s dangers. Upon arrival, Mickey 17 is tasked with capturing a native “Creeper” but falls into a fissure in the planet’s glacial ice. Rather than attack him, the creatures return him unharmed—only for him to discover a new clone, Mickey 18, has already been printed. With the mission leader’s strict policy against “multiples,” the two risk execution and memory deletion, meaning no more Mickey-s. They form a shaky pact to alternate work and deaths, but they’re soon discovered and thrown in the brig. When human–Creeper relations deteriorate, the Mickey-s must navigate hostilities on both sides, protect those they trust, and confront the ethics of the cloning program that has defined—and repeatedly ended—their lives.
Bong Joon Ho is one of my favorite directors. Parasite and Snowpiercer are films I’m always recommending to my friends. So it’s with great love and admiration that I say that Mickey 17 is the worst film Bong Joon Ho has ever made. Its most glaring flaw is pacing: The film stutters, repeats itself, gets hung up on minor B- and C-plot details, and God does it drag on. The second-biggest flaw are the clear signs that Mickey 17 doesn’t expect its viewers to be able to keep up with a simple space colonialism and cloning story, or the most basic ethics that go along with those topics. If you’re looking for real philosophical analysis of such sci-fi quandaries, try Futurama instead. The third-biggest flaw is the fact that this film is billed as a dark comedy when it’s actually just a two-hour-and-thirteen-minute excuse for Mark Ruffalo to do a stilted Donald Trump impression in space. Mickey 17 tries to pass dystopian injustice as humor. Dark comedies are supposed to catch you off guard with laugh-worthy moments or irony drenched scenes amid such darkness, not just pretend that the dystopia is funny. This movie only leaves the viewer sad and mad for Mickey, and frustrated by the lack of movement or passion in a narrative that constantly tells instead of showing. Even the patrons who would normally love this type of highly-processed, spoon-fed story will get caught by the frustrations of the first and third flaws, making Mickey 17 hard to recommend.
Should public libraries add this sci-fi dark comedy to their film collections?
Mickey 17 is a polarizing film, with viewers sharply divided—some enjoy its surreal tone and ethical themes, while others find it slow, repetitive, or frustrating. For this reason, it may not have universal appeal, but it does hold value for public libraries building diverse film collections. As a work from Bong Joon Ho, a director with a devoted following, it will attract patrons who want to see his latest effort regardless of its mixed reception. It also offers some material around cloning, exploitation, and dystopian humor, making it a solid choice for libraries that aim to spark discussion with challenging contemporary cinema.
Is Mickey 17 a good fit for campus or community screenings?
Some audiences will be captivated by the satirical sci-fi worldbuilding, while others may dislike the pacing and tonal inconsistencies. That very polarization makes it ideal for academic or group discussion, particularly in film studies, ethics, or political science contexts. Screenings could focus on whether the film succeeds as a “dark comedy” and how effectively it critiques colonialism and cloning ethics. It’s less a crowd-pleaser than a conversation-starter, and works best when framed as such.
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