By Robert Scucci
| Published
If human clones could be 3D printed, I’d finally be able to start a band with carbon copies of myself who probably wouldn’t have any creative differences. Actually, I’m joking, because I would absolutely find a way to disagree with myself once the boredom sets in as a result of having so many agreeable versions of myself floating around my orbit.
This isn’t exactly how things work in Mickey 17 (2025), but it’s close enough to make the premise immediately unsettling. Here, we have a guy who signs up for increasingly dangerous missions on a mysterious ice planet that will always result in his death, followed by a new duplicate body being printed and his backed-up memories restored so he can do it all over again in perpetuity.
Mickey 17 may sound like a dystopian nightmare, and it is, but it’s also one of the best dark comedies to come out this year thanks to Robert Pattinson’s commitment to being thrown around like a rag doll and dumped down a flaming garbage chute whenever his body finally quits on him.
It’s a story about the dangers of colonization, as well as what happens when you’re reduced to a renewable resource, stripped of your humanity, and treated as disposable. When you have a new body primed and ready to go while a previous iteration of yourself is still alive, though, you quickly learn that being alone with your clone isn’t necessarily as fun as you might imagine.
Mickey Barnes, Mickey 17, Mickey 18 … Same But Different
Mickey 17 centers on Mickey Barnes, the best kind of slacker, whose brilliant plan to avoid a loan shark in the not-so-distant future involves volunteering to help colonize an ice planet known as Niflheim. In order to do this, he agrees to become “expendable,” meaning his physical body will be killed countless times, only for a new one to be created with his consciousness uploaded into it. Mickey is, for lack of a better phrase, shoved through the meat grinder again and again as the body count steadily stacks up.
When Mickey’s 17th iteration is left for dead by his friend, Timo (Steven Yeun), Mickey 18 is printed off by the powers-that-be, namely incompetent and corrupt politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his conniving, controlling wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette). Here’s the problem: Mickey 18 is wildly aggressive and has no idea that Mickey 17 was saved by the very creatures, known as creepers, that he was originally sent to capture for study on Niflheim. Naturally, the two clones despise each other, but things get even messier when they both become romantically entangled with Nasha (Naomi Ackie), who was already involved with Mickey 17.
After the expected sexual experimentation you’d anticipate from this kind of setup, another complication arises in the form of Marshall’s vow to eliminate any clone duplicate, which he refers to as multiples. While it’s reasonable to assume that having your consciousness bounced from body to body would be deeply disorienting, Mickey 17 proposes a workaround. He suggests that he and his successor be allowed to live and rotate duties for the sake of efficiency. After all, they’re trying to colonize a planet full of strange creatures, and all this futuristic tech has to be expensive.
Knowing firsthand that the creepers aren’t hostile monsters but compassionate and resourceful beings, Mickey formulates a plan that threatens to upend the entire system. This sparks tension between himself, his clone, Nasha, Marshall, and Ylfa, while putting the colonization effort itself at risk.
Delightfully Deadpan
As Robert Pattinson continues to take on increasingly unhinged roles, Mickey 17 feels like the perfect logical next step to make in his career. His ability to remain completely deadpan during situations that can only be described as preposterous is one of the reasons he thrives here. As social order collapses in the year 2050, you can practically hear him smirk when various iterations of Mickey mutter “screw it” and willingly place themselves in compromising situations, seemingly for the love of the game. Having endured the excruciating expendable system for so long, he has very little left to lose, so long as new bodies keep rolling off the printer.
At the same time, his expendability creates problems that threaten to shut the cloning initiative down entirely, at least until those in charge realize there are even more ways to exploit their subjects. The social commentary in Mickey 17 is blatant, but it never feels patronizing, preachy, or over-explainy. You’re allowed to exist in this world, observe the power structures at play, and watch the consequences unfold without having the themes hammered into your skull.
The real joy of Mickey 17 comes from watching multiple Robert Pattinsons interact with this bleak, bureaucratic nightmare, all of them exhausted, bored, and deeply over it. The result is a steady stream of gallows humor soaked in absurdity. A sharp exercise in exploitation and exploration, Mickey 17 fully commits to its satire, and you can stream it right now on Max.
