Bong Joon-ho’s follow-up to Parasite is coming to streaming on Max in just a few days.
Mickey 17, starring Robert Pattinson as multiple versions of a menial worker in a dark future, is the latest film from the Academy Award-winning Bong. Pattinson’s Mickey agrees to become an “expendable” in order to escape a debt on Earth. He’s assigned to a colonial mission to outer space, where he is used to accomplish all the most dangerous tasks; every time he dies, he’s given a new cloned body and put back to work.
He’s Mickey 17 because he’s now on his 17th body — at least until he seemingly dies in another work-related accident and the colonists create a Mickey 18. But the first Mickey somehow survives, leading to two Mickeys (which is against the law in this bleak future) running around their space ship.
In addition to Pattinson in the two lead roles, the film also stars Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo as Kenneth Marshall, the former politician turned quasi cult leader who is heading the expedition into space to find a new planet capable of sustaining human life.
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Here is the film’s official synopsis:
From the Academy Award®-winning writer/director of “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho, comes his next groundbreaking cinematic experience, MICKEY 17. The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living.
Mickey 17 premieres on Max (soon to be HBO Max again) on May 23. It premieres on HBO proper on Saturday, May 24 at 7:40 PM.
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