Robert Pattinson, Robert Pattinson, and Robert Pattinson star in the Mickey 17 trailer
Bong Joon Ho’s long-awaited follow-up to Parasite is an ambitious sci-fi comedy starring mny expendable Robert Pattinsons
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Alternating, as he does, between taut thrillers and big-budget, special effects satires, Bong Joon Ho prepares his most ambitious science fiction whatsit to date. Mickey 17, the long-awaited, long-delayed follow-up to Parasite, is finally making its way to theaters. Warner Bros., which should get credit for actually releasing this movie (we were getting nervous), will release Mickey 17 in the United States on January 31, 2025, more than two years after production concluded.
It’s hard to imagine what concerned Warner Bros. about Mickey 17 because it looks like a totally normal movie featuring a movie star doing a regular Tobey Maguire accent. Pattinson stars as Mickey 1 through 17, a go-nowhere Earthling so desperate to leave his home planet that he signs up to be an expendable, a grunt worker expected to die on the job only to be 3-D printed back into existence. While Mickey seems fine dying for a living, things get a little complicated once there are overlaps between versions. When Mickey wakes up in bed with Mickey, the instinct is to kill Mickey—see: a super normal two-and-a-half hour movie in which Pattinson routinely dies or kills himself or allows someone else to kill him.
Bong is known for taking big swings like this. Between his Hitchcockian satires, Bong has filled time with special effects spectacles with deep wells of emotion, absurd humor, socio-political undercurrents, and bizarre creatures. To that end, the $150 million Mickey 17 looks like it surpasses the scale of Snowpiercer.
Last year, Warners moved Mickey 17 from a March release date to January. While that’s rarely, if ever, a good sign, Warner insisted, “There is, of course, enthusiasm for it.” We suppose it’s not the kind of enthusiasm that says, “We think this movie has awards potential,” which isn’t a great sign either, considering Bong’s last movie was one of the best, most unlikely Best Picture winners of the last 25 years. Who’s to say? Bong has surprised us before.