Few directors working in cinema today are as passionate and outspoken as the incredible Bong Joon Ho. From Snowpiercer to Parasite, the legendary Oscar winner has taken sharp, scathing looks at the inequality that exists in society; particularly within its socioeconomic caste systems. This March he’ll be doing it once more in his latest sci-fi satire, Mickey 17!
Today, Warner Bros. dropped a new trailer for the highly anticipated new film from Director Bong, which stars Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, and Academy Award nominees Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo.
While the trailer looks like a blast and reveals a lot more about the plot, if one looks closer they can see there’s much more going on within the surface of this sci-fi adventure than meets the eye. However, before diving into it, check out the trailer for yourself right here:
While many who have read Edward Ashton’s novel, for which the film is based on, might already know what the story for the film is, for those who don’t, the central plotline revolves around the evils of colonization. In this case, Mickey (Pattinson) is an “expendable” employee whose job it is to aid in the colonization of Niflheim by risking his disposable body in various missions to uncover the dangers of the planet. Each time one copy of Mickey dies, another copy is printed to take his place and continue the work.
First off, the cast boasts of some incredibly high profile POC stars, including Ackie and Yeun. Given the direction of a POC visionary auteur like Director Bong, it’s already near the top of my highly anticipated list this year. That being said, thematically, the fact that the film deals with the callousness of the government in the name of greed and entitlement is a message that’s incredibly important to highlight in a big-budget studio movie like this, and at a time like this as well.
More than any other era in recent years, we’re seeing today the downside of capitalism. Our world is plagued by wealthy elites infiltrating high levels of the government to do what’s better for their pockets, and their desire for power, than for humanity overall. Using their platforms to sow chaos and discord at the expense of the betterment of everyone’s lives has allowed them to, in essence, take over the country all together. It’s also made it so that qualities like compassion, acceptance, and ethics are becoming increasingly rare socially. So it’s not a stretch to say that, in spirit, our modern society is not wholly different from the dystopian future depicted in this trailer.
What Director Bong’s work has always done is shine a light on humanity’s flaws, whether it be greed, inequality, gluttony, or apathy. And to do so once again through a satirical film all about the lack of compassion for life in the name of colonization presents an opportunity to shine a mirror on the current status of our culture today, especially here in America. And personally, I, for one, could not be more excited to see how this darkly comedic look at modern society plays out.
Mickey 17 hits theaters March 7!