Review: 'Mickey 17' brings filmmaker Bong Joon Ho back to science fiction, with an absurdist and weirdly funny take on class labor divisions.

In the absurdist science-fiction comedy “Mickey 17,” director Bong Joon Ho returns to the class-conscious satire of his Oscar-winning “Parasite” and his dystopian “Snowpiercer” — and the results are funny, thought-provoking and rather enraging.

It’s 2054, we’re told, on the ice planet Niflheim, and Mickey Barnes has fallen through a crevasse, where he’s badly wounded and about to be attacked by the planet’s creepy-crawly native population. His buddy, Timo (Steven Yeun), sees he’s about to die, and days, “See you tomorrow.”

Then the story rewinds four years to explain the situation. Mickey and Timo are desperate to get off of Earth, because of a sadistic loan shark to whom they owe money, so they sign on for the colonial ship to Niflheim. Timo gets a gig as a pilot, while Mickey — because he didn’t read the brochure — applies for the job of “expendable.” 

The job title is literal, as he’s assigned to do all the work that’s guaranteed to get him killed. His body then is cloned in a flesh-making 3D printer, and his memory downloaded into the new version. Expendables are illegal on Earth, and allowed only on off-world missions — and, thanks to pressure from certain morality-driven politicians, it’s “an abomination” to have more than one copy of an expendable alive at a time.

The Mickey that fell into the crevasse was the 17th edition of Mickey, who in his narration says that even though he’s done it a lot, dying is an experience best avoided. If there’s an upside to this job, Mickey discovers, it’s starting a romance with Nasha (Naomi Ackie), a member of the ship’s security forces. 

Mickey serves the ship’s commander, a former congressman named Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), and his controlling wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette), who rule the ship with a messianic zeal. Ruffalo’s fearless caricature of a blustering and none-too-bright leader with a God complex sets the bar for what I’m predicting will be at least four years of such portrayals. Collette, whose role suggests Angela Lansbury’s manipulator in “The Manchurian Candidate,” is equally game to lean into her character’s awfulness. 

Bong, who wrote and directed (adapting Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel “Mickey7”), captures the strangeness of Mickey’s unique situation with a healthy dose of dark humor and a streak of barely concealed class division. Bong’s team, particularly cinematographer Darius Khondji and production designer Fiona Crombie, give the movie’s zealous colonists, nerdy scientists and swarming creatures a grounding in realism, creating worlds that feel gritty and lived in.

Amid a strong supporting cast — look for Stephen Park (“Fargo”), Holliday Grainger (“C.B. Strike”) and Anamaria Vartolomei (“Happening”) in key roles — Pattinson shines in the role, or roles, of Mickey. Pattinson embraces the comic aspects of Mickey’s weird existence, and shows the evolution of Mickey’s heart and spine, even if it takes a few iterations to get it right. 

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‘Mickey 17’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 7, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for violent content, language throughout, sexual content and drug material. Running time: 139 minutes.