"Mickey 17", 2025

Berlinale 2025: review of the film ‘Mickey 17’ - one, two, three, Pattinson, live!

‘Star Troupers’ from the author of “Parasites” and “Okchi” Pon Joon Ho

The Berlin festival is going its own way - perhaps a little too leisurely. So far, there have been only two centres of attraction for the public: the belated screening of ‘Nobody Knows’ with Timothee Chalamet walking the red carpet, and the premiere of ‘Mickey 17’, the new film by Oscar-winner Pon Joon Ho with Robert Pattinson (and not just one, but multiplied). Admittedly, the premiere wasn't exactly a premiere - the film had already been screened in London this week. After the triumph of ‘Parasites’ Korean master of genre stories about social injustices hushed for five years: the release of Mickey postponed - remounting, quarrel with producers and other delights of a long Hollywood production.

The opening credits with the film's title doesn't appear until the 30th minute. Before that, it's a retrospective excursion from Mickey at number seventeen to number one. A macaroon confectionery business has gone bust and debtor underlings (Robert Stephen Yan in the company) find themselves on an emigrant ship set to colonise as yet unnamed corners of the universe. At the ideological helm are a pair of eccentric autocrats who seek out combinations of a bright future in the dark compartments of the ship. Meet Hieronymus Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife, who co-ordinates the ambitions of Commander Gwen Johansson (Toni Collette). Mickey has a special mission: he's expendable. The young man is killed again and again in the service of progress, then to find a vaccine for viruses in an atmosphere unfamiliar to the colonisers, then for the sake of doing exterior work on the spacecraft's machinery. Upon death, the new Mickey is sent to be printed on a 3D printer, implanting the memory of the original into the next specimen.

We'll dispense with spoilers, but after watching, the reasons for the postponements and remounting become clear - ‘Mickey 17’ doesn't fit into blockbuster standards, even by the standards of Pon Joon Ho's multi-genre universe. The Korean director was able to find common ground with audiences around the world precisely because of the perfect balance between funny and sad, scary and touching, dynamic and melancholy. Mickey once again varies the gamut of emotions, but either stumbles or fails to keep up with the lever of moods. The film both makes you laugh and warms you up, but on the plot twists the heart does not freeze from the races of life and death.

The screenplay frame contours reminiscent of both Paul Verhoeven's ‘Star Landing’ and Hayao Miyazaki's ‘Nausikai of the Valley of the Winds’. The synopsis did not include a mention of the indigenous inhabitants of the new world - the white prairies are inhabited by sub-snow caterpillars, whose mother looks like a squinty mammoth who has lost her mammoth cub with tentacles. In the tradition of ‘Okchi’, Bong Joon-ho does not deny himself a humanism that penetrates from within and again derives the basic principles of humanity in a fantasy world (be it a train from ‘Through the Snow’ or a spaceship): every creature needs a mate or an entire loving family.

In the common search for peace and salvation, the ‘expendable’ Mickey has neither time nor energy to reflect on his own identity after another regeneration. In the universe of Pon Joon Ho, the cogs of the capitalist machine are turned by other people's dirty hands in the name of power, money and the well-being of the haves, Mickey is not alone - and we are not talking about the previous and subsequent copies. There is someone who is ready to mourn the subject time after time: Sergeant Nasha (Naomi Aki) looks through the glass as the most precious person with a serial number is born again. One would like to derive some sound advice or formula, but Bong Joon-ho makes do with a beautiful generalisation that it is better to remain a human being, even if you come out of a printer rather than a womb, than to drive other people into these printers.

The social subtext and satirical charge have not disappeared anywhere: Mark Ruffalo's performance uninterruptedly signals Trump's re-election, and the rich don't care about the woes of the poor. ‘Mickey 17’ differs from Pon Joon Ho's other films except for the absence of a stalwart on-screen soulmate, actor Song Kang-ho - he is truly missed. Of the new recruits, we are especially happy for Anamaria Vartolomei - her performance in ‘The Event’ so moved Pon Joon Ho that he, as President of the Jury of the Venice Festival awarded the film Audrey Couch ‘Golden Lion’. The charismatic Rob Pattinson intonation hits an exaggerated existence in anime and doramas - you can recognise the 17th one by his gait!

‘Mickey 17’ - well-crafted fiction about the bad and the good, about empathy and indifference of power, in the end and love for that very man in all hypostases. Mammoth caterpillars with joyful rumbling replenish the zoo of unseen beasts, and the tape - the filmography of the author. But the film feels more like a sci-fi from the indie segment than a blockbuster nurtured by Hollywood powerhouses. Not ‘After Young’ of course, but somewhere close. A small reminder of humanity in a big industry.