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In \u201cMickey 17\u201d<\/a> (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 \u2014 you know, for the mission \u2014 then gets cloned over and over again to take on the next awful task. At various points he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In many Hollywood movies about clones, the doppelg\u00e4ngers 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 (\u201cMoon\u201d) and in theme parks (the cloned assassins in \u201cFutureworld\u201d); they labor as super soldiers (the clone troopers of the Star Wars franchise) and organ donors (\u201cParts: The Clonus Horror\u201d).<\/p>\n Most don\u2019t know they\u2019re expendable, of course, and aren\u2019t all that keen about their situations if they do. \u201cMickey 17\u201d is an outlier here: an expendable who becomes one willingly, actually writing \u201cexpendable\u201d on his job application. Eventually, however, Mickey tires of the drudgery of dying painfully day after miserable day. Who wouldn\u2019t?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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 (\u201cBlade Runner\u201d); U.S. race relations (\u201cThey Cloned Tyrone\u201d); and the very ethics of cloning itself (\u201cNever Let Me Go\u201d). Here are five notables from an admittedly fringe genre.<\/p>\n Where to watch:<\/strong> Stream \u201cThe Island\u201d on Pluto TV.<\/a><\/p>\n 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<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n Where to watch: <\/strong>Stream \u201cCloud Atlas\u201d on Paramount+.<\/a><\/p>\n 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\u2019s, a fast food joint loosely modeled on McDonald\u2019s. The number one edict for her and her identically bobbed colleagues: Honor thy consumer. When she\u2019s 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\u2019s been drinking are actually made from the pulped bodies of her former clone colleagues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Where to watch:<\/strong> Rent or buy \u201cNever Let Me Go\u201d on most major platforms.<\/a><\/p>\n In this British drama based on Kazuo Ishiguro\u2019s 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 \u201cThe Island\u201d), the heroes here know what\u2019s coming, which raises all sorts of intriguing moral questions within the movie like: Why don\u2019t they just not do it? As they get older, the trio come to believe that their operations \u2014 and subsequently, deaths \u2014 can be postponed if they can just somehow prove to the powers that be that they\u2019re 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\u2019s character wondering if her life and those of her friends were really all that different from the ones they saved.<\/p>\nThe Island (2005)<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Cloud Atlas (2012)<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Us (2019)<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n