Published: 08:56 AM, 17 February 2025
Musk and space travel skewered in South Korean director Bong's latest
Interplanetary space travel and the vanities of tech billionaires like Elon Musk are the subject of acclaimed South Korean director Bong Joon Ho's satirical new film 'Mickey 17' which will be shown at the Berlin film festival on Saturday.
The writer and director of the Oscar-winning 2019 hit 'Parasite' returns to screens with a darkly comic take on the sci-fi genre starring British actor Robert Pattinson as Mickey, an intrepid but accident-prone space explorer, AFP reports.
"It's about someone who is powerless, but who unexpectedly becomes a hero," Bong said at the Berlin Film Festival.
The plot revolves around a megalomaniac billionaire with a resemblance to Musk -- played with brio by 'Avengers' star Mark Ruffalo -- who boards a spaceship travelling to colonise an icy planet in a not-too-distant future.
Mickey is a struggling working-class passenger known as an "expendable" who is chosen to undertake all the most dangerous missions aboard the vessel.
"It's the first time I'm delving into just how silly and foolish people can be, and how that foolishness can actually make them more loveable," added Bong, who adapted the book 'Mickey 7' by sci-fi writer Edward Ashton to write the screenplay.
After the acidic takedown of upper-class life in Seoul in 'Parasite', the 55-year-old admits his new film is warmer in tone and a break from the "ruthless and cynical" mood of his previous work.
