Hollywood released many hit movies in 2025. A Minecraft Movie proved that video game adaptations are here to stay, Sinners to Weapons notched big wins for the horror genre, and Superman launched a new DC Cinematic Universe that looks to be on much surer footing than the last one.
It’s great to see good movies finding audiences, but some films got the short shrift. Case in point: Micky 17 was an absolute banger of a sci-fi film that came out in March. It did alright, but nearly as well as it deserved to do. Now that it’s streaming on HBO Max, you have no excuse not to check it out.
Mickey 17 is brainy, funny, and relevant
You couldn’t ask for a better way to spend two hours
Robert Pattinson is Mickey, a working stiff aboard a spaceship bound for a distant planet called Niflheim. He’s an “expendable,” meaning that the scientists on board use Mickey to test dangerous drugs, patch up holes in the ship, and other things that usually result in his death. That’s why there’s a “17” after his name: this is the seventeenth incarnation of Mickey to be printed since the spaceship left Earth, and he’s getting pretty sick of dying over and over.
At the same time, what else is he gonna do? Work is work, and the future doesn’t offer many options for guys like him. We hear lots of stories these days about new technology taking over people’s jobs and the income gap between the rich and the poor growing ever wider, forcing people to subsist of shrinking portions of the pie. It’s not hard to picture our own world turning into a kind of dystopia. Mickey already lives there.
But the movie isn’t a slog; Mickey 17 is out to make you laugh, not bum you out. Tongue firmly in cheek, the movie spins out a story about an eighteenth version of Mickey getting accidentally printed when the scientists wrongly assume that Mickey 17 has died once again. How do they get along? Only one way to find out.
The talent is off the charts
Robert Pattinson has officially escaped the shadow of Twilight
Credit: Warner Bros.
Robert Pattinson first broke out as sparkly vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight movies, and while he did a good job, that role came with a lot of baggage. Fairly or not, the Twilight films were often written off as cringey, lightweight horror fantasy, and Pattinson as an empty-headed heartthrob.
By this point, Pattinson has proven his critics very thoroughly wrong. After proving his artistic bona fides in smaller movies like Cosmopolis and The Lighthouse, Pattinson returned to mainstream Hollywood as Bruce Freaking Wayne in The Batman, proving he could anchor a modern-day superhero franchise. Mickey 17 bets that he’s a big enough star to hold down an original sci-fi movie, and even though it didn’t make as much as it should have at the box office, Pattinson more than holds up his end of the bargain; he’s fantastic as both agreeable doormat Mickey 17 and aggressive rageaholic Mickey 18. Not once do we wonder which Mickey we’re looking at. In a just world where Hollywood took sci-fi movies more seriously, Pattinson might snag some awards for this performance.
Pattinson is ably supported by the likes of Mark Ruffalo as an egomaniacal politician clearly modeled after someone you know, and Toni Collette as his controlling wife. And at the head of it all is director Bong Joon Ho, who was only able to make an expensive movie like Mickey 17 because of his historic Oscar win for Parasite several years earlier. Bong Joon Ho knew he had only one chance and made the most of it: Mickey 17 includes allhis pet themes—class warfare, humor mixed with grim reality—but on a huge Hollywood budget. He may never get this chance again, so the least we can do is enjoy the once-in-a-blue-moon fruits of his labors.
Support original movies, people
Otherwise, no one will make them
There’s a new Avatar movie coming out later this year, one of several sci-fi/fantasy films to look forward to. I’m sure it’ll be very entertaining, but with Avatar being one of the most successful movie franchises in history, almost everyone knows what to expect. There’s something special about a movie like Mickey 17, which is a completely original idea from a guy, Bong Joon Ho, who does nothing but come up with them. That kind of thing should be rewarded, because if it isn’t, it’ll stop happening. So watch now!
I enjoyed going into a movie like Mickey 17, having no clue where it was going, because it meant I got to be surprised. I don’t want to spoil too much, but every stray piece of lore in Mickey 17 ends up mattering to the endgame, including the grub-like Creepers, the native inhabitants of Niflheim. But they didn’t matter in the way I expected, which is the point.
Watch Mickey 17 on HBO Max | Amazon Prime
You can stream Mickey 17 right now, most readily on HBO Max. Hopefully, it’ll come to a more popular streaming platform like Netflix sooner or later, which already has some great sci-fi movies and shows worth watching. The more people who can see an entertaining, original film like Mickey 17, the better.
Naturally, Bong Joon Ho is soldiering on as well; he’s working on The Valley, an animated film about the relationship between human beings and deep-sea creatures. Whatever that means, I’ll be there.
