Mickey 17
The highly anticipated new film by Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) is a sci-fi comedy about unlikely hero Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattison), a man whose employer demands the ultimate devotion: he must die for his salary.
Mickey Barnes is a hapless loser who, along with his partner Timo, owes money to a group of gangsters. In an act of desperation, they sign up for a dangerous colonial expedition to another planet, led by a narcissistic dictator and his ambitious wife. The submissive Mickey agrees to become an ‘expendable’; he must perform suicidal missions, in order to get bio-printed again afterwards. When the new planet turns out to be home to another species, insects with giant teeth, the dynamics on the ship, as well as in Mickey’s own life, completely change.
After the great success of Parasite, Bong returns to the science fiction genre, which he previously explored in Snowpiercer. The evil in this dystopia is embodied by the plutocrat Kenneth Marshall, a role played with verve by Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things). That his character bears uncanny similarities to Donald Trump is purely coincidental, according to Bong. Yet, his critique of modern American society is pretty clear: what is the worth of a human life in the hands of a power crazed maniac?