It‘s the year 2054. Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) sign up as crew for a spaceship leaving Earth to colonize the planet Niflheim. Mickey becomes an „Expendable“, an Earth-banned technology, used to clone Mickey and restore his memories when he dies. Therefore he‘s given various lethal assignments and every time he dies, another version of him is printed out. Everything goes according to plan until the 17th iteration of Mickey is presumed dead after an assignment. Mickey 18 emerges, but Mickey 17 is still alive and comes back to the ship. Now that there are two Mickeys, they count as “Multiples” which becomes a problem because the expedition’s leader, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), has vowed to kill any existing Multiples.

“Mickey 17” by Bong Joon-ho (“Parasite”) is a dark, comedic sci-fi film that is based on the novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton. With it, Joon-ho gives us another creative and unpredictable story that strongly criticizes capitalism and society itself. Standing out once again is Robert Pattinson showing off his range as various Mickey’s, especially when Mickey 17 and 18 coexist as two very similar but also very different versions of one person. Absurd dark humor and satire, mixed into a sci-fi story lead to a film that is really worth seeing, especially when you enjoyed Joon-ho’s previous films. (HP)