Author: Tyler Hummel

The films of Bong Joon-Ho have a consistency to them that makes them fascinating to revisit. Being one of the most successful directors of the Korean New Wave, his works have gained tremendous traction in America—most notably when his most recent film Parasite won Best Picture at the 2020 Academy Awards. Six years later, his eagerly-awaited follow-up film is finally in theaters.

Bong Joon-Ho has one consistent muse across the entirety of his work—classism. Whether it’s his Korean-language films Mother, Memories of Murder, and The Host or his American co-production projects Snowpiercer, Okja, and Mickey 17, this entire body of work going back to 2000 has focused heavily on issues of wealth inequality, discrimination, and systematic corruption.

The division between his Korean and English-language films is fascinating given how wildly they diverge tonally and thematically. The latter are ambitious science fictions, filled with dark comedy, exaggerated performances, and heavy-handed symbolism. Conversely, his Korean films are generally sadder and more realistic, usually predicated on downer-endings where none of the societal problems are solved. His English films are much less reserved in their revolutionary demand to blow up society for its inequities—literally in the case of Snowpiercer.

His newest film Mickey 17 falls into the latter category, and it is no less fun for it. It is easily one of the most heavy-handed films in Bong Joon-Ho’s career, with symbolism that leaves no room for vagueness in how to interpret it. It’s an unflinching but also highly funny dark comedy that explores the same kind of dystopian society in his prior films but asks a very simple question—what happens if that dystopia is run by an insecure, authoritarian idiot?

Set against the near future, humanity has begun to colonize nearby planets with colony ships carrying thousands of economically displaced migrants to planets where they believe they will have better opportunities. Mickey is an idiotic and shortsighted man who is being tailed by the mafia and agrees to take the job of an “Expendable” aboard one such departing settler ship, which means he is open to having his body and mind cloned, flash-printed, and repeatedly killed to accomplish dangerous tasks on behalf of the crew.

The film makes it clear from the outset that Earth doesn’t allow this experiment because of the ethical implications of cloning, thus setting the contrast. They’re free from ethical challenges in space. Colonists have greater freedom to do ethically dubious human experiments under the oversight of their leaders so long as it serves a utilitarian purpose. And since the human-printing technology implicitly shifts consciousness from body to body, it creates any number of valid concerns about the nature of the soul and the ethics of criminality when there are two or three versions of a person walking around.

The colony ship ends up becoming a microcosm for society as a whole, but showing what happens when such a tight-knit society falls into the hands of a corporation/religion/government that disregards human life. The latter detail is fuzzy as it is clear that Mark Ruffalo’s Kenneth Marshall is interchangeably representative of all three of those institutions, being a failed politician financed by some kind of corporate cult. His followers all wear red hats and wave their arms in the air in an unsubtle fashion. He’s not very complex. It’s clear he’s an egomaniac who just wants to enjoy his power trip at the cost of human life, and that he’s partially a stand-in for Donald Trump (although Joon-Ho has suggested he’s a stand-in for several prominent world leaders besides Trump too).

Not all of Mickey 17’s satire is fully coherent or meaningful outside of its bluntness. Its exploration of religion is muddled by the fact that cloning technology’s greatest critics and proponents are simultaneously Christians. He simultaneously depicts religion as an ethical force defending humanity and a cynical means of controlling the masses. Joon-Ho’s trademark working-class satire is on full display as his bottom-of-the-barrel loser characters take the full brunt of being at the bottom of the hierarchy, but he also falls into some cliche oikophobia when he introduces a native sentient alien species that is altogether more kind and just than the human characters he shares a species with. His best ideas are darkly relatable, while his worst are tiresome.

Maybe the film’s most coherent satirical argument favors sexual liberation. One of the film’s most overt sequences follows Mickey and his girlfriend Nasha repeatedly making love. At the same time, Mark Ruffalo gives speeches about purity and the utility of sexual abstinence—directly positing that sexuality is a form of liberation from overbearing authorities. This motif repeats throughout the film, with one character threatening to report Nasha for a violation but quietly reevaluating by suggesting she ought to “open up” their relationship for a poly-situation. Repeatedly, sex slows the gears of tyranny throughout the film.

Regardless of one’s tolerance for such a heavy-handed metaphor and graphic sexuality, Mickey 17 still relishes in its dark comedy premise and high-concept ephemera. Robert Pattinson completely owns the film playing 18 variations of Mickey Barnes, each one dying a death more brutal than the last and leaving him more tired and drained over time. He’s a beleaguered and fun character despite his ability to get himself in trouble, although one wonders why he’s also the most eligible bachelor in space. Thankfully, the film mostly centers Mickey as its heart, which keeps it consistently entertaining and thoughtful even if the side characters are one-note caricatures.

In short, Mickey 17 is a mess but it’s a fun sort of mess that still borders on greatness! It’s a clumsy movie about clumsy foolish people.

It’s no surprise that Bong Joon-Ho would swing for the fences after such a momentous Oscar win. And while there is tiresome stuff in Mickey 17, it’s hard not to find it charming and fun. Good on Warner Brothers for giving such an ambitious director $118 million to make a film like this! The fact that it would allow him to direct his most expensive and ambitious film to date is laudable, even if Joon-Ho’s politics are messy or disagreeable.

Tyler is a Wisconsin-based freelance critic and journalist, a member of the Music City Film Critics Association, a regular film and literature contributor at Geeks Under Grace, and was the 2021 College Fix Fellow at Main Street Nashville.