Mickey 17 was definitely an experience.
The question of replacing dead/injured people via clones, and the ensuing dehumanization of the expendable copies, is not new ground for science fiction. But they did a great job showing the mundanity of the whole process, and the universal crumminess of the society that would make use of this.
They may be colonizing a new world, but these people don't live in all-white pods facing blank screens and eating food cubes. They live in dirty, cramped, worn cubbies doing manual labor, and eating recycled food that is icky (and not just weird).
It's definitely evocative of the real-world when we see that the evil people in charge aren't Machiavellian manipulators who are on the verge of founding a new empire. They're morons who are dragging all the rest of us down with them, and their new society is going to collapse in a matter of years since they're fundamentally incapable of sustaining it. But that doesn't mean they're not dangerous.
The only story part that doesn't hang together for me is just why Mickey 18 is so different from all preceding Mickey's. He's assertive, aggressive, and I'll even call him a bit of a dick. And it's such a stark contrast to Mickey 17. Dialogue does indicate that there have been variations before, but they were all variations on the same theme of the original Mickey. They never tried to break out of their role on the ship, never tried to get revenge on Timo for getting them in trouble with a loan shark originally, etc. So why did 18 suddenly leap to violence and revenge at every opportunity? I'm not saying he's wrong, but nobody ever mentions anything being different about this process, so....I dunno.
Unless we're saying that the religious nuts were right that multiples don't have souls, and since 17 was still alive when 18 was printed he was made without a soul. Because if that's the direction we're going, I think the rest of the film didn't get that message.
