This is what Hollywood should be churning out: original yet familiar ideas that are entertainment with a dash of commentary. The film paints in broad strokes and creates a pulpy, bombastic ride. It’s simple, it’s joyous, it’s entertainment. Any deeper message is going to get lost in the shuffle—at least on a first viewing. 

This is quintessential Bong Joon-ho; only he could blend a hundred different ideas into a film—often within the same scene—and make it feel tonally uniform and maintain rhythm. How Bong can swerve directly around a serious beat to punt a killer line sky high into the air is just sublime. 

It needs to be acknowledged that, no, there is not an exceptional depth to the commentary on display, nor does there need to be. Any follow-up to Parasite was destined to be a victim of expectations, but the decision to make this have only sprinkles of satire instead of a lot or none was always going to make the response more harsh. I’ve noticed a particularly vitriolic response from cinema audiences to broad satire. In that sense, this film reminded me of Don’t Look Up and its mostly poor reception a few years ago. That film had some positively terrific comedic acting, among some other merits. But the fact that its satirical elements were muddy or poorly conceived torpedoed the whole ship for many. 

With that said, let’s inspect some of the commentary of Mickey 17. 

The most prominent idea this film gives voice to is the notion that corporations and politicians (is there a difference?) treat people as disposable. Human capital is capital. That’s hardly a noteworthy take to put out in 2025. What’s most curious about that aspect of the film is the manner in which virtually all the blue collar ancillary characters participate in the dehumanization. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Despite this, ultimately, they choose not to embrace the dehumanizing technology, indicating that the rejection of this behavior is aspirational. This is the most transparent creed articulated by Bong Joon-ho in the entire film.

A more obscure yet modern commentary comes in the satirization of Christian rhetoric infecting American politics. The sycophantic theologists surrounding Kenneth Marshall clearly don’t care one bit about true divinity. Speaking of, we’ve seen demagogues of the sort many times before—Marshall would fit right in as a Bioshock antagonist. But the way in which his followers, adorned in gaudy, crass merch gush about an unexceptional ninny can only be seen as reflecting one thing…

Perhaps the most unique piece of satire depicted through Marshall is our ability to watch him and his lackeys try to assemble a hagiography for himself in real time. It’s more or less the same concern regarding ‘optics’ we’ve seen in dozens of political dramas before, but inflated to biblical proportions—as it rightfully should be in a satire. The politician, the devout Christian, and the wannabe Christ replacement all wrapped in one package of brain rot and dental veneers.

Thus Far, I’ve steered clear of the Mickey in Mickey 17—but Pattinson deserves his due for meshing so well with Bong Joon-ho’s bag of tricks. He convincingly sheds his charisma for the role; Mickey’s quirks and tics go full circle all the way back to some bastardized form of charisma. It’s an enchanting sort of awkwardness. 

C’mon. It was a $120 million Bong Joon-ho film in IMAX. It was a good day.