AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Actor Robert Pattinson first came to fame as a 104-year-old vampire who looks like a teenager in the "Twilight" movies. Critic Bob Mondello says that the science fiction satire "Mickey 17" gives the actor a new way to be immortal.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Mickey Barnes was on the run from loan sharks when he signed up for a space voyage. He had no particular skills, but there was one position that didn't require any - scientific guinea pig.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MICKEY 17")
BRONWYN JAMES: (As Receptionist) You're planning to be an expendable?
HOLLIDAY GRAINGER: (As Red Hair) You read through the paperwork?
ROBERT PATTINSON: (As Mickey Barnes) Yeah.
(As Micker Barnes) I should have read through it.
MONDELLO: Expendables have their DNA mapped so they can be reprinted when they die.
CAMERON BRITTON: (As Arkady) That's it. Mickey, deep breaths. Fill your lungs.
MONDELLO: And they will die.
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BRITTON: (As Arkady) Imagine there's an unknown virus in the air and you're sucking in every single microscopic particle floating around. All the viruses.
PATTINSON: (As Mickey Barnes) There really was an unknown virus in the air - a lethal one.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: See you tomorrow.
MONDELLO: And they reprint him with memories intact, including of this ordeal. They've done this quite a few times before Mickey, played with sweet resignation by Robert Pattinson, finds himself deep in a crevasse on the icy planet their expedition was headed for.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MICKEY 17")
STEVEN YEUN: (As Timo) Mickey.
MONDELLO: His buddy...
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YEUN: (As Timo) Whoa, you haven't died yet?
PATTINSON: (As Mickey Barnes, laughing) No.
YEUN: (As Timo) Hold on.
MONDELLO: ...descends into the crevasse to rescue not Mickey, but his flamethrower. Mickey is, after all, an expendable.
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YEUN: (As Timo) How many times is this? You're Mickey 16?
PATTINSON: (As Mickey Barnes) Seventeen. Jerk.
YEUN: (As Timo) It's nice knowing you. Have a nice death.
MONDELLO: And he's alone. Except...
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PATTINSON: (As Mickey Barnes) Oh, great. Hopefully, I'll just get swallowed in one go. It's got to be better than slowly freezing to death. Or maybe not.
MONDELLO: The thing is, the critters he expected to eat him - they're sort of a cross between a tumble bug beetle and an armadillo but huge - didn't. They pushed him back up to the surface. So he returns to the ship and to his room and discovers...
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PATTINSON: (As Mickey 17, screaming)
MONDELLO: ...That they've already printed out Mickey 18.
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PATTINSON: (As Mickey 18) Why aren't you dead?
MONDELLO: Mickey's girlfriend finds this intriguing.
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NAOMI ACKIE: (As Nasha) This is so exciting (laughter).
MONDELLO: But multiples are supposed to be disposed of, which would present a thorny ethical issue for the space colony's fatuous leader if he were into ethics.
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MARK RUFFALO: (As Kenneth Marshall) You two. Which body goes first? One at a time is twice the fun.
MONDELLO: Mark Ruffalo plays this guy as an egomaniac, who says he's creating a pure white planet full of superior people like us while doing finger-pointing dance moves to applause from supporters in red hats. Make of that what you will.
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RUFFALO: (As Kenneth Marshall) Fellow pioneers. Almost every single one of you will be remembered throughout history.
MONDELLO: Filmmaker Bong Joon-ho has lots of satirical fish to fry - possibly too many. And as in his previous movies, including his Oscar winner "Parasite," he fuels the frying with class conflict, environmental burns and an overriding critique of capitalism. Mickey is the classic blue-collar everyman, or maybe every clone, exploited by his employer and dismissed by his social betters, his peers and now, even by himself.
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PATTINSON: (As Mickey 18) I don't like you.
(As Mickey 17) But I'm you.
(As Mickey 18) I'm not going to live like you. I'm going to kill you.
MONDELLO: Though the film is kicky, dark and almost always visually arresting, it's Pattinson's performance, or really, performances, that make it work. He seems game for anything here, not just playing two sides of one of filmdom's more unusual romantic triangles but taking on a challenge that can't come up often for an actor. He has to prove in "Mickey 17" that he has excellent chemistry - with himself.
I'm Bob Mondello. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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