Thomas Turgoose | Bouquets & Brickbats

09/03/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

After several lengthy delays, Bong Joon-Ho’s follow-up to 2019’s Oscar-winning smash, Parasite, finally makes it into the UK’s multiplexes. Mickey 17 is frankly nothing like its eminent predecessor, closer in tone to the director’s earlier films like Snowpiercer and Okja, the kind of futuristic sci-fi adventures that first helped him build his stellar reputation.

It’s 2054 and the world (as widely predicted) is going to hell in a handcart – so much so that its inhabitants are literally fighting for places on an upcoming space mission to seek out a new habitable planet. The mission is spearheaded by failed Presidential candidate, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a man so obsessed with his own image he grabs every opportunity to film himself looking suitably heroic. He’s always accompanied by his clingy, sauce-obsessed partner, Yifa (Toni Collette), whose ideas he quickly appropriates and passes off as his own.

Shy, bumbling Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his dodgy best friend, Timo (Steven Yeun), have pressing reasons to secure berths on Marshall’s spacecraft. Their recently launched Macaron business has gone tits-up. Timo financed the venture by borrowing money from a famously terse mobster who is known for exacting recompense from defaulters by the liberal application of a chainsaw – so making themselves scarce seems like a good idea.

Timo (typically) manages to land himself a plum role on the mission, but poor Mickey has to resort to signing himself up as an ‘Expendable.’ As the mysterious ‘Red Hair’ (Holiday Grainger) explains, he will be expected to undertake a series of potentially lethal experiments whilst on board, but no matter, because all his genetic information will be stored in a database. In the event of his death, the company will simply print a new version of him, all ready to start over. What could possibly go wrong?

On the long journey, Mickey’s luck appears to change for the better when he clicks with security officer, Nasha (Naomi Ackie), and enjoys a loving and sexual relationship with her, even though such shenanigans are openly discouraged by Marshall. But once the ship has landed on the ice-bound planet of Niflheim, Mickey begins to appreciate how easily his life can be repeatedly snatched away from him, as he is used as a guinea pig to test out the potentially deadly atmosphere. And once that problem is solved, there are the native creatures to deal with: huge woodlouse-like beasts, quickly dubbed by Yifa as ‘Creepers.’ But are they really as ominous as they look?

Mickey 17 has all the hallmarks of Bong’s sci-fi work. It looks astonishing, particularly the footage on Niflheim, where countless numbers of Creepers go on the rampage. Pattison is terrific in the title role and in the scenes where he has to be both Mickeys 17 and 18, manages to subtly convey the tiny differences between them with considerable skill. Ruffalo also shines in a role where the similarities with the USA’s current president are clearly entirely intentional. (Ironically, the fact that the film’s been held back for so long only serves to accentuate the character’s monstrous ego and constant need to self-aggrandise – all familiar from watching the traits play out on the daily news reports.)

I’d be lying if I said that this is a perfect film. For one thing, there are far too many characters and even a running time of two-hours-seventeen-minutes fails to offer enough space for Bong to fully explore them all. You will briefly spot the likes of Thomas Turgoose and Tim Key in cameo roles, but it’s the female characters in particular who are given short shrift. Grainger’s early appearance suggests that ‘Red Head’ is going to be important to the story but she just fades away as the film progresses. Collette does the best she can with what little Yifa is given to work with, but it’s never really enough.

That said, I find the film fascinating and I love the lo-fi nature of the future of space exploration, full of glitches and hiccups – and the ways in which the lust for personal glory will always vanquish the need to act with compassion towards strangers. Bong (who also wrote the screenplay, based on a novel by Edward Ashton) seems to delight in his central premise, that the rights of the individual come pretty low down the pecking order in the pursuit of so-called progress.

Characters constantly ask Mickey Barnes the same question: ‘What’s it like to die?’ To which he is never able to supply a satisfactory answer. And perhaps that’s because the central premise is so elusive – that age-old mystery about mortality and what it really means. To be – or not to be?

Mickey 17 is proof, if ever needed, that even when he’s not quite firing on all cylinders, Bong Joon-Ho is still one of the world’s most downright watchable directors. I have a blast with this. However, those who come expecting Parasite 2 will definitely be disappointed.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

11/07/18

The Full Monty has so much to answer for. Since its initial success in 1997, there have been innumerable films about groups of men banding together in order to perform in front of audiences, and the makers of Swimming With Men are clearly hoping to find similar success. Here, the chosen skill is male synchronised swimming and, while there’s definitely the germ of a good idea at the heart of this endeavour, the resulting film never really manages to make its way out of the shallow end.

Eric Scott (Rob Brydon) is an accountant, currently going through a mid-life crisis. Thoroughly bored and disgusted with his day job, he somehow convinces himself that his wife, newly elected town councillor, Heather (Jane Horrocks), is having an affair with her boss. He promptly storms out of the family home to live in a nearby hotel and spends most of his spare time at the local swimming baths, working off his feelings of discontent. It’s here that he encounters a group of disaffected men who are learning synchronised swimming routines. They include handsome leader, Luke (Rupert Graves), former youth team footballer, Colin (Daniel Mays), and dodgy delinquent, Tom (Thomas Turgoose). Eric’s abilities with mathematics apparently make him an ideal addition to the collective and, pretty soon, with the help of swimming bath attendant, Susan (Charlotte Riley), they are training to enter the Male Synchronised Swimming World Championships. (If this strikes you as an unlikely occurrence, the film makers are keen to point out that a team from Sweden – who actually have small roles in the film – did exactly that a few years ago.)

But really, Swimming With Men fails to convince on so many levels, this is the least of the problems I have with it. There’s undoubtedly a timely message here about male bonding and the need for men to find a place where they can open up and talk about their unhappiness, but this film is a missed opportunity to fully explore the idea. Instead, the lazy, underdeveloped screenplay prefers to deal with simpler issues, but even then it doesn’t get them right, throwing up too many questions for comfort. Why is Brydon’s character so deluded? We are shown very little motivation for his destructive behaviour. And what really changes by the end?

There are also some less pressing – but nonetheless niggling – issues. Why are several really excellent character actors given very little to do but splash around in budgie smugglers? And why is there no visible change over time in the physiques of men who are supposedly training hard for a World Championship?

Ultimately though, what really defeats the film is the fact that the sport of synchronised swimming, as performed by a group of amateurs, just doesn’t look very spectacular on the big screen. I find myself in total sympathy with the bunch of kids at a birthday party who are given a performance as a special treat and watch the resulting antics in bemused silence. (No wonder one of them feels the need to liven things up by putting a turd in the pool.) Indeed, it really says something when the film’s most memorable scene has the swimming team performing a spirited routine… on dry land.

This is a potentially interesting idea that fails to stay afloat and seems destined to sink without trace.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney