Robert Pattinson gives his all but can’t save Mickey 17’s bonkers blend of sci-fi and social satire

After winning an Oscar for Parasite, big things were expected for director Bong Joon Ho’s next movie but his big swing with Robert Pattinson doesn’t quite connect, writes Leigh Paatsch.

With a spectacular but incoherent sci-fi and a tough-going but hugely rewarding drama, it’s mixed fortunes for a couple of revered directors at the movies this week.

MICKEY 17 (M)

Robert Pattinson in Boon Joon Ho’s out-there Mickey 17.

Director: Bong Joon Ho (Parasite)

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Naomi Ackie

★★

A Mickey that can’t stop slipping

There will be other weird movies released in 2025.

However, none will be as frustratingly incoherent and unsatisfyingly strange to a fault as Mickey 17.

This bonkers blend of science fiction and social satire is the work of Boon Jong Ho, the celebrated South Korean filmmaker whose last movie was 2019’s Best Picture Oscar-winner Parasite.

However, where that mesmerising affair often felt like it was changing the game for a global audience, Mickey 17 always comes off as it is merely playing games with each and every viewer.

The only front on which this flamboyant $200 million folly offers the vaguest hint of success is as a visual spectacle. Its best scenes unfold on a massive, horizon-melting scale that go close to matching the Dune movies.

Nevertheless, once you leave its impressive size out of the equation, much of Mickey 17 just doesn’t add up.

Naomie Ackie and Robert Pattinson Mickey 17.

Our protagonist is Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), a down-on-his-luck desperado who, in a far-off future, has signed up for a space colonisation program.

In deep debt to a mobster, Mickey elevates his pay grade by becoming an “expendable”: a guinea pig who is continually assigned to test conditions on the new planet a wacky team of fanatics will be calling home.

Being an expendable means that all of these assignments will end in certain death. However, once you cark it, you are hauled back to HQ, where your remains are fed into a 3-D printer. Overnight, a new you will be reprinted, all of your memories will be uploaded, and you will be ready for work again inside a week.

As we join the story, Mickey has already reached the 17th version of himself, and owing to a human resources error, there is now an 18th Mickey kickin’ around as well.

Robert Pattinson and Robert Pattinson in the messy Mickey 17.

Messy, huh? Let me assure the movie is only getting started with its pointlessly scrambled brand of storytelling.

Soon we will be meeting two of the most annoying screen villains in recent memory (Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette as the religious politicos running the space mission), and thousands of armadillo-like creatures that aren’t pleased with the arrival of new visitors to their planet.

While Pattinson has his moments fleshing out Mickey’s multiple selves, and a handful of set-piece sequences temporarily provoke genuine awe and wonder, the movie squanders two full hours telling an in-joke for which it appears to have forgotten the punchline.

Mickey 17 is in cinemas now

HARD TRUTHS (M)

Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Mike Leigh’s hard-hitting drama, Hard Truths.

★★★★

General release

As they say in the classics, life wasn’t meant to be easy. Same goes for the movies of British writer-director Mike Leigh. For over five decades, Leigh has largely stuck to the same approach: starting with a blank canvas, and then building characters and stories throughout rehearsals and shooting. The end results are invariably woundingly raw, deceptively humorous and deeply authentic.

Therefore it comes as no surprise that Hard Truths holds to the same high standards longtime Leigh devotees have come to expect. Those who show up will be rewarded with a masterclass in acting from the great Marianne-Jean Baptiste, who plays the principal character here.

Her name is Pansy, and she doesn’t like people at all. Nor does she wish to engage with the world outside her suburban home. Her husband and son accepted this fact long ago, and have found ways to ‘live around’ Pansy’s plentiful prejudices. However, her darling sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) still holds on to a certain hope that, one of these days, Pansy will snap out of her funk.

Like the recent A Real Pain, this is a tale driven by a constant stream of clever, colourful conversations. Listen hard, and it will feel as if this challenging movie is speaking directly to you.

IN THE LOST LANDS (M)

Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista make a compelling couple in In the Lost Lands.

★★

General release

This scrappy fantasy-western’s entire reason for being is its literary pedigree as a short story penned by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin back in the early 1980s. Thrones fans won’t be all that excited by an obvious struggle to stretch Martin’s basic yarn to fill a full feature-length movie.

Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) stars as Gray Alys, a warrior witch sent to an infamous region known as The Lost Lands on behalf of a queen who, ummm, would like the ability to turn into a werewolf. After striking an alliance with a mystical hunter named Boyce (Dave Bautista), Gray Alys slices, dices and shoots her way through a passing parade of angry adversaries and creepy critters. Needless to say, no one will be venturing to this affair for clear and compelling storytelling.

However, some questionable editing and, every so often, sub-par special effects makes the going harder than it really should be. The one saving grace is the pairing of Jovovich and Bautista, who plough their way through this uneven territory with consistent good humour and energy.

Originally published as Robert Pattinson gives his all but can’t save Mickey 17’s bonkers blend of sci-fi and social satire