In “Mickey 17” (in theaters) Robert Pattinson plays a former pastry chef and an amiable dimwit who applies for a lousy, inevitably lethal job on a contaminated ice planet. As an Expendable, Mickey goes into the worst sorts of situations, dies in some horrible way — you know, for the mission — then gets cloned over and over again to take on the next awful task. At various points he’s irradiated, instructed to breathe in a deadly space virus, left for dead in a cave full of space bugs, used as a guinea pig in a series of failed experiments, and fed bad meat.
In many Hollywood movies about clones, the doppelgängers are just as expendable as Mickey, created to perform all sorts of dangerous and unpleasant tasks humans would rather not do. They work on lunar mines (“Moon”) and in theme parks (the cloned assassins in “Futureworld”); they labor as super soldiers (the clone troopers of the Star Wars franchise) and organ donors (“Parts: The Clonus Horror”).
Most don’t know they’re expendable, of course, and aren’t all that keen about their situations if they do. “Mickey 17” is an outlier here: an expendable who becomes one willingly, actually writing “expendable” on his job application. Eventually, however, Mickey tires of the drudgery of dying painfully day after miserable day. Who wouldn’t?
Movies about these genetic sad sacks run the gamut of genres, from horror and sci-fi to action films and dramedies. Filmmakers use clones to ponder questions about fate and free will and what it means to be human; various films have examined such disparate topics as the nature of sentience (“Blade Runner”); U.S. race relations (“They Cloned Tyrone”); and the very ethics of cloning itself (“Never Let Me Go”). Here are five notables from an admittedly fringe genre.
The Island (2005)
Where to watch: Stream “The Island” on Pluto TV.
Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson star in this Michael Bay sci-fi action film about a group of people living inside an isolated compound years after the outside world has become one big Superfund site. Once a week, a lucky citizen is chosen to leave the compound to live on a gorgeous tropical island, supposedly the only nontoxic spot on Earth. McGregor soon learns, however, that there is no island, and that the world outside is fine. As it turns out, everyone in the compound is a clone of some big shot in the real world, born and bred to supply spare organs when needed. Car chases and crazy stunts (of the Bay variety) ensue.
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Where to watch: Stream “Cloud Atlas” on Paramount+.
In 2144, the cloned Fabricants of Neo Seoul live in underground bunkers, emerging to the surface to work 19-hour days for the Purebloods, their human masters. Sonmi-451, played by the Korean actress Bae Doona, toils as a server at Papa Song’s, a fast food joint loosely modeled on McDonald’s. The number one edict for her and her identically bobbed colleagues: Honor thy consumer. When she’s not serving drinks or enduring indignities from human bros, Sonmi dreams of Xultation, an annual rite when groups of lucky Fabricants like herself ascend to a better place. Sonmi becomes radicalized after she discovers that there is no better place, and that those protein shakes she’s been drinking are actually made from the pulped bodies of her former clone colleagues.
Where to watch: Rent or buy “Never Let Me Go” on most major platforms.
In this British drama based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel, Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley play young friends born and bred to be organ donors once they reach adulthood. Unlike similar stories about organ-donating clones (see “The Island”), the heroes here know what’s coming, which raises all sorts of intriguing moral questions within the movie like: Why don’t they just not do it? As they get older, the trio come to believe that their operations — and subsequently, deaths — can be postponed if they can just somehow prove to the powers that be that they’re truly in love, or that they have artistic souls. (Spoiler alert: Nobody cares.) In the end, the film is a meditation on mortality, with Mulligan’s character wondering if her life and those of her friends were really all that different from the ones they saved.
Us (2019)
Where to watch: Rent or buy “Us” on most major platforms.
In Jordan Peele’s horror thriller, the Tethered endure a miserable life underground, eating raw rabbits as the spoiled, surface-dwelling humans enjoy their cooked rabbits and comfortable lives. Created in a mysterious program intended to keep their human counterparts in line (just how is never made clear), the Tethered were abandoned when the program was discontinued, left to eat their awful meals and slowly go mad. Lupita Nyong’o plays the film’s heroine, Adelaide, as well as her own creepy doppelgänger, Red, who emerges above ground — Santa Cruz, to be precise — to take on Adelaide and her family. Fans still fiercely debate what the film was about, what the ending meant and what really happened to Adelaide when she was a child. As creepy as Peele’s doubles are, their pitiful back stories eventually make viewers question who the true villains and victims are as the film blurs the line between clone and human, the Other and Us.
Infinity Pool (2023)
Where to watch: Stream “Infinity Pool” on Hulu.
After killing a farmer in a drunk-driving accident in the fictional country of Li Tolqa, the writer James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard) is given a choice: He can have the farmer’s eldest son stab him to death (really not much of a choice, after all), or the boy can stab a cloned double in his stead, one created by the government of Li Tolqa at the writer’s expense. The choice is part of the seaside country’s “longstanding tourism initiative,” and since the clones only exist long enough to get executed — true expendables — the story is really all about the humans and what kind of psychological effect making such a decision would have on a person. To make the executions truly righteous, the clones are like their originals in every way, down to their memories of their crimes. Which leads more than one cloned character to wonder after the whole grueling experience is over: Am I sure they didn’t kill the real me, and I’m the clone?