Why cinema needs more original ideas like ‘Mickey 17’

In partnership with Warner Bros. UK

In 2019, Bong Joon-ho released one of the most memorable movies of the last 20 years – at least. Parasite introduced his genius to a much wider audience than ever before (if you’ve not checked out his back catalogue already, do yourself a huge favour immediately after reading this).

The darkly funny satire was such a critical and commercial success that we were desperate to see what he’d do next. Mickey 17, starring Robert Pattinson as Mickey, more than lives up to the anticipation. In the near future, our Mickey has dubiously signed up for a programme that will see him blasted into space as an ‘expendable’ – which means that he can be killed off and ‘reprinted’ endlessly for scientific research. What follows is a wild, unexpected romp through the outer reaches of Joon-ho’s imagination.

We’ve never seen anything like it and we’d love to see cinema continue down this route – because…

There’s no shortage of material

Mickey 17 is based on Mickey7, the cult 2022 novel by Edward Ashton. At Las Vegas’ CinemaCon 2024 last year, Joon-ho was asked why he changed the title. Fabulously, he deadpanned: “I killed him 10 more times!” So his latest outlandish cinematic outing isn’t a straight lift of the source material, but an individual interpretation of a novel that was pretty idiosyncratic to begin with. No wonder the result is so unique.

Some of the greatest sci-movies of all time were based on novels (Blade Runner was famously adapted from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick, whose tomes inspired so many movies that Hollywood should have had him on a retainer). The basis for the next great science fiction opus is out there somewhere… probably at the bottom of that pile of books you’ll definitely work through one day.

Actors need to flex

Robert Pattinson is virtually unrecognisable in Mickey 17 – even though we end up with two of him due to a ‘reprinting’ error! Some actors disappear into a role with prosthetics and other movie magic (see Colin Farrell’s reinvention as Oz Cobb AKA the Penguin in The Batman, which later won him his own spin-off series). Here, though, Pattinson comes armed only with a note-perfect ‘Noo Yoik’ accent and a wounded puppy persona so heart-wrenching that you just want to give him a cuddle.

Meek Mickey is an unusual hero in a sci-fi movie, which is part of what makes the flick so refreshing. We all love a superhero movie, but an actor as ambitious and experimental as Robert Pattinson needs films that offer something a little different. Luckily, that’s Bong Joon-ho’s speciality.

As do filmmakers

“One for the studio, one for me.” That’s the old Hollywood mantra espoused by great directors such as Martin Scorsese, who would balance personal film projects with the seat-filling box office bonanzas that effectively paid for them. But what if a director could combine A-list, blockbuster budget with wildly imaginative and eccentric storytelling?

That’s exactly what Bong Joon-ho has done with Mickey 17 – though it takes a director of rare skill to pull it off. Here, he proves he’s lost none of the bite and wit that made Parasite such a surprise success… but now he has a bigger palette to paint with. It would be criminal to waste this man on endless re-treads of films we’ve seen before.

We like to be challenged too

They say there are no new ideas, but they’ve obviously not had the pleasure of seeing Mickey 17. A confession: not many of us had the foresight to say we’d love to watch a movie that mashes together comedy, thrills, the home invasion genre and lashing of class-based satire. And then we saw Parasite and realised that’s exactly what we needed.

Every time a film like Parasite proves to be a surprise smash, it’s a reminder that there’s a huge audience out there for bold, unusual filmmaking that doesn’t fit neatly into boxes. We also love a good straight-up horror movie (or even a bad one, to be honest, sometimes), but we love it more when directors push things forward. A win for a weird movie is a win for all of us, because it tells Hollywood that it’s well worth taking chances. How else are we going to get two Robert Pattinsons for the price of one?

The golden age is upon us

L’Arrivée D’un Train En Gare De La Ciotat, Auguste and Louis Lumière’s 1896 film of a train arriving at a platform, was said to cause viewers to try and leap out of the way because they thought it was real. It’s unlikely that audiences will be so innocent or naïve ever again, but there’s still a thrill in exposing yourself to something brand new in cinema. There’s a difference between a film you watch and one you experience. Mickey 17 definitely falls into the latter camp.

There’s no sentence a film nut enjoys uttering more than: “I can’t explain. You just have to see it!” Whether it’s The Brutalist (intermission and all) or Anora, there’s an increasing number of new movies that go to places we simply didn’t see coming. Long may it last.

‘Mickey 17’ is released in UK cinemas March 7

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