Back in October 2008, I served as a judge at a now-defunct New York City film festival that featured selections from emerging and largely unknown filmmakers. Ticket sales were, unfortunately, slow. However, one screening noticeably sold out, drawing an audience of tweens and teenage girls: Oliver Irving’s droll How to Be, which later received a small theatrical release. Among its cast was Robert Pattinson. This was a month before the release of the juggernaut Twilight, in which he played the pouty, pretty-boy vampire Edward Cullen. Such was the appeal of a star in the making.

Seventeen years later, Pattinson has built a varied filmography, working with a wide range of filmmakers. He may well be the most adventurous actor of his generation. Although he leads Mickey 17, his low-key charm takes something of a back seat to the film’s world-building and special effects, though, compared to recent films like The Substance, Mickey 17 is relatively lucid and less bonkers. And for those now-adult fans who grew up watching Pattinson as the handsome Edward, there may be a particular appeal in a scene where one lucky woman shares a three-way with not one, but two Pattinsons.

In the year 2054, Mickey Barnes (Pattinson), a sad sack on the run from a sadistic loan shark, signs up to join a colony on a far-off planet, leaving behind an environmentally wonky Earth. Without reading the fine print, Mickey applies for—and is accepted as—an “Expendable,” a human guinea pig tasked with carrying out high-risk missions, such as enduring extreme radiation in outer space or testing vaccines for novel viruses. In other words, he’s signed up to die—over and over again. Though he has already died 16 times, he’s still not exactly used to it.

After each demise, his body regenerates through organic waste into a new version of himself, complete with his physical form and memories intact. When the film begins, Mickey is on his 17th iteration. However, plans go awry when Mickey 17 miraculously survives a fall into an icy crevice on a wintry planet, rescued by adorable yet repulsive creatures that resemble baby sandworms from Dune. Here, they’re crudely referred to as “Creepers,” and they pop up everywhere.

The colony is overseen by the buffoonish Kenneth Marshall, played by Mark Ruffalo in a performance that deliberately echoes Donald Trump, from his petulant, belligerent manner to his staccato delivery. (This may be just the beginning of years of Trump surrogates as onscreen villains—Marshall’s supporters don red hats.) If Marshall seems out of his depth, his Lady Macbeth-like wife, Ilfa (Toni Collette), is always nearby to whisper authoritarian edicts in his ear. The colony’s purpose? To create a “planet of purity” populated by “superior people.”

Unaware that Mickey 17 has survived, the station’s scientists produce Mickey 18, who, for reasons never fully explained, is markedly more assertive, deep-voiced, and aggressive than the mild-mannered, nasally average Joe that is Mickey 17. Thus, he has no guilt in his attempts to kill his predecessor.

For viewers who appreciate the subgenre of good-and-evil twin sagas, rest assured: There are satisfying moments where the two Mickeys share the screen seamlessly, thanks to Darius Khondji’s seamless cinematography and top-tier special effects. For those, like myself, who smiss the short-lived TV series Ringer with Sarah Michelle Gellar—where she played both a Park Avenue princess and her criminal-on-the-run twin sister—this may scratch that itch. Mickey 17 joins an exclusive club of doubles that includes Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers, not to mention the countless doppelgängers and twins that have populated daytime soaps.

The plotting lacks the precision of director Bong Joon Ho’s perfectly assembled Parasite. Instead, it leans more into the goofy, cartoonish energy of Okja, his most colorful and playful movie. Thankfully, Mickey 17 avoids an over-the-top performance like Jake Gyllenhaal’s unhinged turn in the former. Still, Ruffalo and Collette’s broad, hammy portrayals fit within the film’s heightened, good-versus-evil framework, reminiscent of Okja’s cartoonish antagonists.

One indication that this sci-fi adventure comes from a director outside the usual action-franchise mold is its climactic focus on character more so than spectacle. That said, one wonders if the film’s sexier elements—Mickey’s hook-ups with Nasha (Naomi Ackie), a security officer of superhuman strength—were trimmed in the final cut. Perhaps part of Mickey’s appeal for Nasha lies in the lack of commitment. With his constant cycle of death and rebirth, there will be no long-term attachment. He’ll die soon, regenerate, and return just as eager as ever.

Bong has crafted a romp through and through, with characterizations lighter than the snow falling on its frigid interstellar planet: Why, exactly, is frenemy Timo (an underused Steven Yeun) so cruel to Mickey? Fortunately, Bong gives Pattinson room to play, contrasting the meek, put-upon Mickey 17 with the take-charge, gung-ho Mickey 18. Pattinson seems liberated from the heavy costume encasement of The Batman. But make no mistake: This is less an actor’s showcase than it is a platform for Khondji’s cinematography to create a world that feels strikingly tangible.