Mickey 17 is a spectacular flop

Bong Joon Ho’s science fiction satire is a rare miss for the visionary filmmaker, littered with unconvincing performances, lacking in subtlety and simply not funny.

What a disappointment. One of 2025’s most anticipated films in Bong Joon Ho’s first project since Parasite (2019) won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director and Screenplay, falls flat on its face in a chaotic, unfunny mess.

The South Korean director has established himself as a modern cinematic great, producing hit after hit, in a truly unique style which often tackles important societal issues juxtaposed with hilarious, absurd humour. The likes of Parasite, Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006) and Mother (2009) resonated so strongly with audiences as they addressed social injustices and followed engaging characters viewers could relate to.

But Mickey 17 falls far below Bong’s previous work. Its characters are forgettable and unlikeable. Its comedic attempts miss the mark. At 2h 17m it feels long and drawn out. Its message is so far rammed down the audience’s throat it loses any sort of impact.

Considering why Bong’s worst work has followed his best, one wonders if Mickey 17 illustrates the difficulty of writing satirical comedy in a foreign language. This isn’t Bong’s first English language production, the excellent Snowpiercer (2013) and Okja (2017) were both primarily English speaking films and both offered societal critiques. But Snowpiercer was an ‘action-thriller’ and Okja a ‘sci-fi adventure’. Again, both featured a few very funny moments, but these served as an enjoyable side to the main course. In Mickey 17, the comedy and satirical commentary take centre stage, with the sci-fi ideas running along in the background.

Humour is so culturally embedded in a culture. Even once learning another language, it takes time to fully appreciate the nuances of a different type of humour. Not only does it depend on language, it is also influenced by the history and customs of a place. Whereas ideas and plot elements can easily translate across languages, humour is far more complex. This can be seen in the ways cinema varies across the world.

Mickey 17 also represents a shift in genre from Bong’s previous work. His films always contain elements of absurd comedy, in fact I’d argue he writes comedic elements as well as any filmmaker, but, other than Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), they’re always a part of a more serious story. In Mickey 17, they’re its heart. This is a crucial difference. Whereas provoking a few laughs in a thriller or action flick is an appreciated extra, in a satire the parameters for success are different. The aim is to make the audience laugh, so a certain threshold must be met.

This is the foremost problem with Mickey 17. It is meant to be funny, but isn’t. The humour is in-your-face and unsubtle. Characters shout and flail around. Mark Ruffalo parodies Donald Trump in an impersonation so exaggerated that they might as well have just called him Donald. The characters are so one-dimensional and uninteresting.

It’s a shame as there is an interesting concept at the heart of the story, based on Edward Ashton’s novel, Mickey7. Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) owe money to a loan shark, having borrowed cash to set up a macaroon business which is a subsequent failure. Facing brutal torture, Mickey looks to flee Earth by joining a Space program. But in this dystopian society it seems many others have the same idea, so to increase his chances of being accepted, Mickey signs up to be an “Expendable”, allowing himself to be cloned and utilised for experimentation and dangerous work.

This ensures Mickey gets a spot on a mission to Niflheim, a four-year long journey to a planet humanity aims to colonise, as it seems no one else is dumb enough to agree to the Expendable program. As Mickey says, he “should’ve read the small print”. The mission is being led by Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a failed populist politician lacking any sort of intelligence, but inspiring a cult-like devotion from his supporters (*cough* MAGA *cough*). While proclaiming the need to ration themselves during the journey, Marshall enjoys lavish meals in his quarters with his wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette).

The original Mickey gradually transitions to Mickey 17 over the course of the expedition, often being exposed to deadly conditions in the name of research. Each time a version of Mickey dies, a new clone is printed using a backup of his genetic makeup and consciousness to produce an almost exact duplicate of the one who just died. His personality sometimes slightly varies from iteration to iteration (and drastically in the case of 17 to 18), but otherwise he is identical. This leads to several characters asking him “what is it like to die?” as each new version of Mickey remembers the previous death.

Things start to get messy when Mickey 17 is thought to have died after falling through the ice on Niflheim and being dragged off by an enormous slug-like alien (later named a “creeper”), prompting the scientists back on the ship to print Mickey 18. Instead, the creepers save Mickey 17 and he returns to base to find Mickey 18 lying in his bed. He is now a “duplicate”.

The story has similarities to Okja, exploring how humans exploit and abuse other creatures for their own means while also commenting on populist political figures like Trump. It is Trump who Ruffalo clearly has in mind with his exaggerated mannerisms. There are some similarities with his extravagant performance as Duncan Wedderburn in Poor Things. But whereas in Yorgos Lanthimos’ absurd world this worked, here it feels wildly over-the-top.

Interestingly, although likely unintended, a lot about Marshall draws parallels with ex-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. His wife clearly is the power behind the throne, something which Johnson’s own wife, Carrie, was accused of in some quarters. And Marshall’s assistant, Preston, can be likened to Dominic Cummings, operating in the background while scheming to direct his boss’ actions.

As Mickey 17 reaches its climax, the plot becomes increasingly chaotic as characters shout a lot and run around. By this point, it’s difficult to care one iota about anyone on screen (other than the cute aliens). Perhaps this is the point, as like with Okja, the creepers are the real victims in the story. But Mickey, Nasha Barridge (Naomi Ackie) and Dorothy (Patsy Ferran) are all characters we are meant to care about, but just don’t.

If Mickey 17 had been written as a serious sci-fi flick with some absurd elements (like most Bong films), perhaps it would’ve worked better as it looks great on the big screen and the process of cloning raises interesting moral dilemmas. But for a film which is so blatantly trying to elicit laughs it fails. And social critiques almost always work best when they involve subtlety, trusting the audience to get the point.

In the streaming age, in which foreign language productions have thrived in the U.S. and U.K. thanks to a wealth of platforms and viewers increasingly watching even English language films and TV shows with subtitles, I hope Bong-Jong Hoo’s next film is a South Korean production. One of the many brilliant aspects of Parasite, Memories of Murder, Barking Dogs Never Bite, The Host and Mother, is how they give an insight into Korean society and issues clearly close to heart for Bong. We can all see how awful Trump is everyday (just open a news app and there will be about ten new stories about him), the man is a parody of himself. There are far more interesting topics to draw attention to on screen.