My Review of "Mickey 17"

Mickey 17 is a weird sci-fi movie that came out in 2025. Despite the oddity of the story, there's still a semblance of reality in there. They talk about a ton of interesting existential themes throughout the movie and had me thinking. Don't worry it's not one of those doom and gloom artsy films. There is a lot of positivity throughout this movie. That was originally my only hesitation from watching this movie.

It all starts out with the introduction of Mickey 17. He tells us his origin story. Basically he got into some hard times because of some bad decisions in his past. Mickey isn't the smartest guy and it doesn't help that he's a huge pushover.

His opportunist friend Timo gets them into some trouble with a mob boss. This has them on the run from the mob. With no money and nowhere to go they didn't really have much choice. They decided on enlisting for a colonization program. This program basically wants to colonize another planet with humans. The problem is they don't know where they can colonize.

Mickey has no skills whatsoever so he had to enlist as an expendable. He didn't realize he was going to be the human guinea pig of the trip. This means they take all of his gene information and memories into a databank. He's able to die and they will replicate him. With each replication he will remember all of the things that happened in his previous lives.

In order for them to test out the atmosphere of the planets and test out drugs they need expendables. He will go on to die sixteen times. In this movie, he is living out his seventeenth incarnation. This movie then goes on a big change that I didn't quite expect it to. It's not totally unexpected but it livens up the whole movie.

Every time he dies they print out a new version of him. In one of Mickey's assignments they believe that he had died but somehow he miraculously lived. This brings up the dilemma, what if there are multiple Mickey's? I loved this dynamic because it really changed the mood of the whole movie. Each of the Mickey's have drastically different personalities.

Though, this also brings up a ton of existential questions. Are the two one and the same because they share the same memories and built of same DNA? Each of them obviously have different personalities. They even go into some very interesting questions. If one of the clones commits a crime is the other one at fault when they know of this other person's thoughts. Is he an accomplice or is he an innocent bystander? What about relationships with people? How do you share those relationships with the same person?

I actually liked this about the movie. The questions had me second guessing myself and as the movie played out more questions jumped at me. His psychological well being had to be tested. I could not imagine all of the questions Mickey had for himself. Each turn there was something new that would throw him for a loop.

There is a ton of things discussed in this movie. I think they even made some political messages. Basically to be weary about our leaders. Sometimes the propaganda machine is more powerful than what we think. Some people cannot be trusted unchecked. This was done in such a cartoonish manner that you can't take everything too seriously.

That's another thing. I did not expect this movie to be as funny as it is. There is a ton of dark humor involved but it was funny nonetheless. The absurdity of some of the scenes make you really laugh. They're clever with some of them too. Some of the jokes are based on the fact that the scenes are so absurd but you can see how this could be based on reality.

Overall, I had a good time with this movie. I thought it was really fun but really picks up in the second half of the movie. There is a weird change in pace in the middle where you can tell this is where the real movie starts. Still the first introductory half isn't bad it's a lot of exposition though. I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. I would recommend to some but I don't know if I would repeat view this one.