“Mickey” (Robert Pattinson) is desperate to avoid a grisly fate at the hands of a loan shark, so decides his best bet is to get off-planet. Thing is, there are an whole load of like-minded folk so his only hope is to be an expendable. That means he gets used for all the dangerous and experimental tasks and if he gets killed or seriously maimed, they just lob him in the incinerator and reprint him - complete with all his old and quite a few new memories. Travelling through space, he meets “Nasha” (Naomie Ackie) and they have a good thing going, even if the imperious couple in charge - Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette - have forbidden the wasting of the 100 calories it takes to have sex! Things start to go a bit wrong, though, when he unexpectedly survives one chilly mission only to find upon his return they have already duplicated his successor. “Nasha” thinks the ménage-à-trois thing could work quite well but “Mickey” less so, and when rumours of their duplicate existence starts to abound, well things get distinctly dodgy. Meantime, the indigenous population of the planet they have landed on are getting a bit cross with the murderous attitudes of their human interlopers, and so perhaps it’s gonna be for “Mickey” x 2 and “Nasha” to sort things out before the pitch changes altogether. It’s quite good fun this, but I kept thinking of “Galaxy Quest” and couldn’t decide if Ruffalo was having a go at Donald Trump or Val Kilmer with his rather hammy performance. Also, despite being easy enough on the eye, Pattinson is a remarkably charm-free actor and here, even when there are some daft scenarios and the CGI works flat out to create a perfect series of images, he just underwhelmed the whole time and when the film is about more than one of him, that mattered. Collette and Steven Yeun are relatively under-used and it’s simply far too long to sustain the thinness of a plot that does raise some interesting issues around human cloning, exploration and that especially American cinematic trait of shooting extra-terrestrials first and then asking question later, but I was disappointed with this, sorry.

<em>'Mickey 17'</em> is a blast! What a fun time at the cinema this was. It delivers a super engaging plot, an excellent cast and some tremendous special effects. I, like almost everyone, love Bong Joon Ho's <em>'Parasite'</em>, but personally I'd rank this one of his higher. That's likely a personal thing, this is more entertaining and highly likely more rewatchable; that named 2019 flick is quality, but I can't say I've had any inkling to revisit it since I watched it in 2020. Again, just me; it'll obviously vary person-to-person. Two great films, all the same. Robert Pattinson is brilliant as the titular character, he kills it <i>(ba dum tss)</i> all the way through. Naomi Ackie is as terrific though, she is smashing it in recent years; hard to separate her fantastic performances in <em>'I Wanna Dance with Somebody'</em>, <em>'Blink Twice'</em> and this. Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette and Steven Yeun are super in their respective roles too. Top notch casting! Anna Mouglalis voices the leader of the Creepers, who I thought looked outstanding. Awesome effects. The whole look (and sound) of this movie is first-rate. Loved it.