Movie Review: Mickey 17
March 17, 2025
This movie was honestly the perfect combination of witty funny, politically punchy, and deep. There are some characters who are for sure based around some political figures we are seeing a lot of at the moment, and they poke fun at their techniques in running a group of people. Mark Ruffalo plays the leader of the ship and he does a brilliant job. I would love to read the book at some point and see what was similar and what they adjusted to be a little more relevant in today’s climate.
We follow the story of a man named Mickey ( played by Robert Pattinson ) who has fallen into some bad luck, and decided to run away from earth, and apply to work on a ship that is venturing off to another planet. This ship is run by a failed politician, but will be leading this ship for the next four years that it takes to get all the way to this new planet. The catch, though, is that there are far too many applicants and far too few spaces on the ship, so he applies to be an expendable, without reading the paperwork on what that really entails. He signs up to be a person whose consciousness is going to be uploaded to a literal brick over and over again and printed out a new body so that they can kill him over and over again with little to no repercussions. They are able to test all their vaccines, artificial food products, the air on the new planet, or anything else that they need to test before allowing the whole group of passengers take part. It is a testing loophole, and he is the only expendable on the ship, so he has to take all of the drugs and test all of the air and die over and over again.
The movie feels like it is a statement on what it really means to be alive. What is truly means live a life. What makes living worth it? If we died over and over again would we still be afraid of death? Does anyone truly know what it is like to pass? Is the loss of one worth the safety of many?
I enjoyed the movie and would like to watch it again. I would suggest this to any syfy lover, or any of us who grew up on The Hunger Games and Divergent series.
