10 Best Sci-Fi Movies Of 2017
3. Okja
Whenever Bong Joon Ho - best known, perhaps, for monster flick The Host - gifts a new movie upon the world, it's cause for celebration. With Okja, his crazy and original sci-fi/comedy/satire hodgepodge, that's certainly the case.
The plot here focuses on a young girl named Mija, who is assigned to care for a giant, pig-like creature called Okja... until one day said creature is snatched away by the "evil" Mirando Corporation, led by a magnetic Tilda Swinton. What follows is a picture that asks us to consider the moral and environmental costs of eating meat under the guise of an explosive chase movie, set in the not-too-distant future.
South Korean films are renowned for their seemingly random tonal shifting, and Okja is quite content to flit between scenes of graphic violence and slapstick comedy, depending on the point that Bong Joon Ho wants to make. It shouldn't work, of course, but it does: Okja is so charming a creature that you're set on following her - and therefore the film - wherever she goes.
The performances here, especially the one delivered by Jake Gyllenhaal as a psychopathic scientist, are appropriately nuts, whilst the film itself - though a tad messy in places - is bound to leave you feeling amazed and exhilarated.