Mickey 17 (2025) Review: The Ultimate Disposable Worker
Mickey 17 (2025) movie poster. Source: Warner Bros. Pictures. Used for review and commentary purposes. Mickey 17 (2025), directed by Bong Joon-ho, begins with an absurd science-fiction idea: what if a worker could die on the job and simply be printed again? Robert Pattinson plays Mickey Barnes, an "Expendable" assigned to dangerous work during a human expedition to the frozen planet Niflheim. If Mickey dies, another body can be created with his memories restored. To the people running the mission, this makes him extremely useful. It also makes his individual life surprisingly easy to dismiss. What interested me most is how Bong Joon-ho takes that dark premise and makes it funny without removing its cruelty. Beneath the science-fiction technology is a much more familiar question about work and human value: if someone can always be replaced, how easily do people stop treating that...