MICKEY 17

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film opens in the future, in an icy crevasse on the planet Niflheim, where Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has fallen from a great height but has somehow survived. His friend/partner Timo (Steven Yeun) sees him but doesn’t help him out because he figures Mickey is going to die anyway, as this Mickey is the 17th clone that has been printed out. Timo asks Mickey what it’s like to die. Before Mickey can answer, a large creature emerges from behind an icy wall and starts sliding towards Mickey, whose voiceover states that he hates dying.

Mickey narrates over how he came to this moment. A little over four years earlier on Earth, he and Timo got into hot water with a loan shark, Darius Blank (Ian Hanmore). In order to avoid getting killed for failing to pay off their debts, the two signed up for a crew of people who are working to colonize Niflheim, since Earth has fallen into bad shape. The colony is run by Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), an over-the-top celebrity figure with a legion of highly-devoted followers. Timo signs up to be a pilot, while Mickey becomes an Expendable, making it his job to take on dangerous and lethal tasks, such as to gather samples of a deadly virus to find a vaccine. Mickey is also troubled by memories of his past, such as his belief that he caused his mother to die in a car accident as a child because he pressed a button in there that caused the car to crash and burn.

During his time in the colony, Mickey meets and falls in love with Nasha Barridge (Naomi Ackie), a security agent who works there. While the workers are having a carefully organized lunch (they get penalized if they take more food than is deemed necessary), they are visited by Marshall and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette). Marshall orders that there be no sexual relations taking place among the colonists, something that Mickey and Nasha disregard multiple times.

In his fourth year with the colony, Mickey (the 17th copy of him) joins Timo, plus agents Kai Katz (Anamaria Vartolomei) and Jennifer Chilton (Ellen Robertson), on the expedition in Niflheim. Marshall wants them to capture one of the creatures in the crevasse, dubbed “Creepers”. A cluster of baby Creepers descends on the group. When Jennifer shoots at one from above, the ice ceiling comes collapsing down on top of her, which devastates Kai. After Mickey ends up down in the crevasse, he anticipates that the Creepers, especially the large mother one, will eat him. Instead, the mother uses her tail to pull Mickey up out of the cave while the smaller Creepers push him out. Mickey is confused but starts to make his way back home.

When Mickey gets back to his room, he is stunned to discover that Mickey 18 has already been printed since they assumed that Mickey 17 was already dead. 17 panics, because this means there are now doubles of him. Doubles were banned after a serial killer named Alan Manikova (Edward Davis) used the cloning printer to make copies of himself to carry out murders of the homeless while establishing an alibi for himself. Anybody caught as doubles will be killed for good. Mickey 18 tries to kill Mickey 17 until Marshall and Ylfa show up, forcing them to hide. Mickey 17 ends up going off after being invited to dinner with Marshall and Ylfa, while Mickey 18 goes with Nasha.

Kai joins Mickey and the Marshalls at dinner as a consolation for Jennifer’s death. During the dinner, Mickey starts to have a violent reaction to a growth hormone added to the food by Marshall’s lead scientist Arkady (Cameron Britton). He is then given experimental painkillers before having a painful response to that as well.

Mickey 17 goes back to his room after recovering, where he finds that Nasha already knows about the doubles situation. She seems to be excited at the prospect of having two Mickeys, while Mickey 17 seems put off by it. Mickey 18 is pissed off at Mickey 17 for letting himself get abused by the Marshalls. Moments later, Kai finds out about the doubles situation too. She proposes to Nasha that they share the Mickeys, which disgusts her. Mickey 18 then heads off to carry out his plan to kill Marshall.

Marshall is conducting a ceremony with a large rock found in Niflheim. As the crowd is gathered and the rock is being broken open, a baby Creeper pops out and causes chaos. Mickey 18’s assassination attempt is thwarted, though he does graze Marshall’s cheek with the gunshot. The baby Creeper is shot to death while a second baby is captured. The Mickeys are imprisoned after they are discovered, and Nasha is locked up alongside them.

While trapped in cages, the Mickeys and Nasha talk about how Mickey 17 was saved by the Creepers, which leads Nasha to realize that they are not harmful in the way that Marshall is making everyone believe. They are found by Timo and his companion. He has been ordered by Blank to kill Mickey and deliver video proof of it. Mickey 17 refuses to let Timo do this, but Mickey 18 appears to agree to take his place. This turns out to have just been a distraction to knock out Timo and the other guy, allowing the three to escape.

The Mickeys and Nasha come before the Marshalls, as Kenneth is preparing to launch a newly-developed deadly nerve gas, Arkady 3.0, against the Creepers. The entire colony of Creepers, led by the Mother, has emerged to the surface after hearing the cries of the babies. Ylfa cuts off the tail of the captured baby Creeper in order to make a new kind of sauce that she wants to market. Nasha tries to tell them that the Creepers are not harmful, but they do not listen to her. Marshall orders the Mickeys to be sent out and to collect Creeper tails, and the one who collects the least will be blown up.

The two go out into the snowy fields, where Mickey 17 goes to speak to the Mother, using a translator given to him by one of the more sympathetic Marshall scientists. The Mother (Anna Mouglalis) speaks to Mickey, knowing his name and explaining that they have come to the surface to get back the baby, named Luko. They know that the other baby, Zoko, has been killed, so they not only want Luko returned to them, but the Mother demands that a human be killed in Zoko’s place, or else they will exterminate all of humanity. Mickey signals to the monitors a gesture that Nasha would understand (“bring the baby”). Nasha has been forced to hold a rope with her teeth, as Luko is hooked to it over the lava pit where the Mickey clones are disposed. Seeing that Mickey is trying to peacefully negotiate with the Mother instead of killing the Creepers, Marshall decides to head out to kill everyone, Creepers and Mickeys, himself.

Nasha attacks Ylfa and threatens to snap her neck unless they let Luko go. After they try to do so, Ylfa nearly lets Luko fall to his death, but one of the agents, Zeke (Stephen Park), gets his hand sliced when he tries to help Nasha. He hits back that he and the other agents have recorded evidence of her and Marshall’s crimes, and they will be promptly exposed. Nasha rushes out to deliver Luko while Marshall charges into the snowy fields with a bazooka to kill the Mother. The Creepers form piles of themselves to protect the Mother, while Mickey 18 runs up to Marshall’s van to fight him. He presses the detonator on Marshall’s wrist, blowing both of them up as the sacrifice for the Creepers. Ylfa is horrified to witness her husband’s death before she gets taken away. The Creepers then return home.

Six months later, a ceremony is being held, with Nasha having risen to power in the colony. Mickey narrates what else has happened. Ylfa was taken to a psych ward where she slit her wrists. Blank sent another assassin after Timo, but he killed the man and ended up getting off easy with regards to any of his criminal activities. Mickey continues to work with the Creepers to understand the way they live. He and Nasha are still together, but he occasionally has nightmares such as Ylfa still being alive and trying to use the clone printer to make a new Marshall. However, in the present, the clone printer is being set to be blown up, as the Expendable program is shut down for good. Mickey, now going by his original name, Mickey Barnes, is given the honor of detonating the printer.

In the near future, people have left Earth to colonize another planet, Niflheim. Mickey Barnes and his friend Timo join the colony's crew to escape the wrath of a loan shark. The colony is run by a politician named Kenneth Marshall and his wife Ylfa. Mickey signs himself up to be an Expendable, which puts him up to dangerous and lethal tasks that would kill him and then allow the scientists to reprint multiples clones of him when he keeps dying. During his time in the colony, Mickey meets and falls with an agent named Nasha Barridge.

During one expedition in Niflheim, Mickey 17 is tasked with collecting a sample of a creature called a Creeper. The Creepers turn out to be harmless and even save Mickey from dying in the icy crevasse. However, when he returns to the colony, he finds that Mickey 18 has already been printed in anticipation of Mickey 17's death. This causes a problem since doubles are forbidden and would mean the end of the cloning process for the person who is copied. They are discovered after Mickey 18 tries to kill Marshall, leading to them and Nasha getting captured.

After Nasha learns that the Creepers are not dangerous, she and the Mickeys break out and try to tell the Marshalls, but they do not listen to her. Instead, Marshall has the Mickeys go out into the snowy fields to kill Creepers since the whole group has come to the surface after one baby Creeper is killed, and another is captured. Mickey 17 communicates with the Mother through a translator, and she tells him that they want the surviving baby and for one human to die in place of the baby that was killed. Marshall attempts to spread a nerve gas to kill all the Creepers, but not before trying to kill the Mother himself. Mickey 18 attacks Marshall and uses Marshall's detonator to set off an explosive on 18's body, killing both of them.

Six months later, the Expendable program is shut down, and Nasha is put in power since Ylfa killed herself after being taken to a psych ward following her husband's death. Mickey continues to work with the Creepers, maintain his relationship with Nasha, and is given the opportunity to destroy the clone printer.