After the considerable success of his 2019 Oscar-winning tale Parasite, director Bong Joon Ho took a well-deserved break. The filmmaker returned with a quirky sci-fi comedy via 2025’s Mickey 17.

In the 2050s, humans attempt to colonize the ice planet Niflheim. This offers a highly dangerous task that often kills workers.

Thus the expedition uses “Expendables”, volunteers who die but then get “reprinted” as new versions of themselves. Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) goes through 17 iterations of himself before a major complication arises that creates new challenges.

If that concept sounds familiar, then you probably saw 2009’s Moon. That one offered another sci-fi tale that involved more than one version of the same person.

This doesn’t make 17 a clone of the 2009 movie, though. While they share a basic conceit, they differ in most other ways.

17 marked my third experience with the work of Bong. In addition to Parasite, I saw 2013’s Snowpiercer.

Though all three offer social commentary, 17 comes closer to Snowpiercer than to Parasite for a few reasons. First, those two take place in fantasy sci-fi worlds versus the real South Korea of Parasite.

More importantly, Bong engages in much more heavy-handed symbolism in 17 and Snowpiercer than he does in Parasite. While the latter paints its themes in a fairly complex way, Snowpiercer and 17 evoke these concepts in exceedingly simplistic ways.

Perhaps this reflects Bong’s view of the US audiences. Snowpiercer and 17 represent his only two English language films with largely non-Korean casts.

Given the current political climate in America, I can’t fault Bong’s dim view of us. Nonetheless, he paints his concepts in such broad and basic ways that they generate more eye-rolling than insights.

Another issues stems from the scattershot manner in which Bong explores ideas and characters. At its core, the film feels like a commentary on the ways in which corporations view “working people” as disposable.

That played into Parasite to some degree, but Bong gave the roles much more complexity there. In 17, though, the parts end up as cartoons.

This extends to our lead, as Mickey – in any of his multiple iterations – doesn’t really evolve into anything interesting. Given that Mickey 17 survives longer than he should, the film could explore how his longer life impacts his perspective.

Instead, this doesn’t really happen. After an intriguing opening, Mickey ends up more as a pawn in a variety of different plot points, most of which stray from the film’s original thrust.

And boy does Bong toss a lot of story threads at us! On one hand, I respect the ambition involved here, as Bong goes for the gold and packs a lot of ideas into the film.

Unfortunately, 137 minutes doesn’t leave the director enough time to flesh out these concepts in a satisfying manner. As such, we get a lot of nibbles without a full meal.

Again, the first act works pretty well. 17 introduces its basic notions well and creates an intriguing narrative.

And then it rockets off the rails because Bong can’t settle down and focus on any particular domain. 17 flits all over the place in terms of story elements and themes and tone.

This means the initially engaging 17 gradually turns into a muddled mess. I get the impression Bong got bored with the basic concept as he wrote the script and came up with a slew of alternate developments to keep himself interested.

17 comes with a fine cast. In addition to Pattinson, we find Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yuen, among the more known actors.

They do fine in their parts, I guess, though the scattershot nature of 17 holds back their potential. To some degree, they all play cartoons, so we don’t get a lot to allow anyone to stand out from the crowd.

All of this leaves Mickey 17 as a sporadically entertaining but inconsistent film that sputters as it goes. As much as I appreciate the movie’s ambition, the end product doesn’t coalesce into a coherent tale.

Mickey 17 appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. A native 4K product, this turned into a solid Dolby Vision presentation.

Overall delineation seemed good. A few slightly soft shots materialized, but most of the movie provided appealing definition.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Source flaws failed to appear.

For the most part, the film’s palette leaned toward a grungy blue-green, though we got a fair amount of orange/amber as well. The disc replicated the tones as intended, and HDR gave them a little extra kick.

Blacks seemed deep and dark, while shadows offered positive clarity. HDR added punch to whites and contrast. Outside of a little softness, the movie looked terrific.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the film’s Dolby Atmos soundtrack also worked well. Of course, the sporadic action scenes used the spectrum best and provided good punch.

Environmental information satisfied, as weather and other elements popped up in the correct spots and blended smoothly. Toss in a nice array of directional lines and this turned into a well-placed soundscape.

Audio quality worked well, with speech that appeared natural and concise. Music offered good range as well.

Effects became impressive when allowed to shine, as those elements felt lively and full. Though not quite ambitious enough for an “A”-level grade, I still thought this became a strong mix.

In addition to two trailers, we get three featurettes. Behind the Lens runs 11 minutes, 35 seconds and offers notes from director Bong Joon Ho, novelist Edward Ashton, hair and makeup designer Sharon Martin, special effects supervisor Dominic Tuohy, and actors Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Angus Imrie, Patsy Ferran, Naomi Ackie, Stephen Park, Daniel Henshaw, Steven Yeun and Anamaria Vartolomei.

The program brings info about Bong's style as a filmmaker. Though we get some good insights, an awful lot of praise for the director crops up as well.

A World Reimagined lasts nine minutes, 47 seconds. It brings info from Bong, Pattinson, Yeun, Collette, Ruffalo, Martin, Ackie, Tuohy, production designer Fiona Crombie, producer Dooho Choi, costume designer Catherine George, production sound mixer Stuart Wilson, visual effects supervisor Dan Glass, set decorator Alice Felton, and actor Cameron Britton.

Here we learn about sets and production design as well as hair, costumes, and effects. Like the prior reel, this one mixes worthwhile notes with happy talk, though the balance works better this time.

Finally, The Faces of Niflheim goes for eight minutes, three seconds. This one involves Pattinson, Bong, Glass, Ackie, Yeun, Ruffalo, and Collette.

"Faces" covers cast, characters and performances. It delivers another moderately informative but spotty reel.

While I admire the breadth and ambition of Mickey 17, I find the end product tough to love because it seems so all over the place. Throw in too much heavy-handed and poorly executed social commentary and the movie becomes a bit of a chore to watch, especially because it loses a lot of steam as it progresses. The 4K UHD brings strong picture and audio along with a small set of supplements. Bong Joon Ho enjoys real talent as a filmmaker but he struggles to create a coherent tale.