Six years after the impeccable Parasite, Bong Joon Ho has finally released Mickey 17. It was announced to be in production in 2022 and after a series of delays due to the SAG-AFTRA strikes last year, it has taken until now to come out. Thankfully, the wait has been worth it and it proves that Bong Joon Ho is still one of the best directors working today. Combining his signature styles and themes, with a new collaboration with the fantastic Robert Pattison, amongst others, this is a brilliant fun sci-fi romp.

Pattinson plays the titular Mickey Barnes who, after a business deal gone wrong, flees Earth with his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) on a space expedition. The expedition is led by Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette). In order to get on the expedition, Mickey applies to be apart of the ‘expendable’ program wherein he has to be prepared to die – many times. He takes on all the dangerous tasks and experiments and if he dies, he is reprinted exactly how he was before. He does his job and hangs out with his girlfriend, Nasha (Naomi Ackie), until a complication results in another copy of him printed whilst he is alive.

Bong’s writing here is excellent as he juggles many different themes and yet manages to make them consistent with each other. Mickey 17’s intial reaction to Mickey 18 is of fear, not because of the multiples violation but because it undermines his own humanity. The characters’ reactions to his duplication is varied but a lot of the time, they value him much less. This is because, as much as the expendable program in itself does this too, it is a physical representation of how replacable he is. This is how Marshall, for example, sees him all the time, even without the multiples. He does not care what happens to him and this is clearly a dig at mindless leaders in society who see all their people as a rabble that are just easily replacable. Marshall and his wife are one of the less subtle thematic representations, obviously criticising the gulf between classes, like most of Bong’s films do. In fairness, there is not much subtle about most of this film’s themes, and yet after being repeatedly hit round the head with them, they do still largely work. One of the themes that seemed subtle at first was its dealing with xenophobia. When Mickey first sees one of the creatures of Planet Niflheim, he is immediately fearful and thinks it will kill him without even possibly thinking it could be friendly. Unfortunately, the whole third act is to do with this theme, without any shred of subtlety. It can get exhausting and it is why the film does slowly drop off in its third act.

Something consistent throughout the whole film is the performances. Pattinson is nothing short of outstanding with a gleefully over the top performance. He has a lot to do with playing 17 and 18 but he manages to convincingly set them apart. You can tell who is who by their demeanor alone which is very impressive. Unlike the small bits of its writing, the absurdity of the performances work as they are clearly directed satirically. Ruffalo and Collette are possibly the biggest cases of this and they are great fun to watch. Ruffalo truly channels the side of him seen in Poor Things and it is supremely entertaining to see him ham it up. Another obvious strength throughout was the cinematography. It was refreshing to see the camera used with so much life in every scene. Constantly jumping around and weaving through the scene with precision and purpose, it really was a joy to watch. It shows the confidence Bong has to make everything so bonkers and even if some bits work better than others, it is still respectable.

Now this is not quite Parasite, but it was never going to be. It is, though, a confidently led genre film that is off-the-wall insane at points and that makes it thoroughly entertaining. It does overstay its welcome a bit but even in that slightly less engaging final third, there is still so much merit to see, especially with its nail-biting tension. The full package is a great time and once again Bong Joon Ho has not disappointed in that regard.