Mickey 17

Movies and TV series are one of my favorite escapes from reality, I’m sure you already know that. I love thrillers and mystery, but I normally alternate them with a good comedy. Those make me laugh. I recently watched a dark comedy to which I tip my hat. Mickey 17 is the new movie from director Bong Joon Ho. He set the bar high with Parasite. I’m glad to say that he got very close, if not higher, with his new movie.

Plot (hopefully without big spoilers)

Mickey is a regular guy, maybe even below average person. He volunteers to go on a mission to populate an ice-planet, Niflheim. He’s trying to escape his problems on earth with a murderous loan shark. Because he doesn’t read the fine print (who ever does?) he accepts to go as an “expandable”, a kind of worker that is assigned lethal tasks. Every time he dies, he gets to be printed again along with all his memories up till then. He does that several times until he reaches incarnation 17, thus being dubbed Mickey 17.

Uncanny resemblance with our world

As with Parasite, this movie includes a fierce criticism of capitalism. It also features wannabe tyrants who love to be on TV and use religion to communicate with their base. Through humor on its darkest level and absurd situations, we can’t avoid seeing the similarities with our own world. For example, the humans are invading a frozen planet but they are calling their native inhabitants “aliens”. Don’t the humans realize that they are the aliens in this case? It makes us question if we are living in a dystopia like the movie. Alternatively, is the movie not a dystopia but is in fact reflecting our reality?

Hope for humanity

In the end, this is a tale of resistance and hope for humanity. Will we get to survive the tyrants? Not without unforeseen leadership and hard work.

Have you watched this movie? What did you think of it? Or are you planning to watch it anytime soon? Leave that in the comments!