In Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17, the 17th incarnation of Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) is haunted by a foundational trauma from back home on Earth. Mickey has convinced himself that his string of fatefully bad luck stems from pushing a button inside his mom’s car that led to her death. Mickey 18 (also played by Robert Pattinson) dryly offers that the real culprit was an automaker’s defect. It’s this small but telling detail that distills the central conflict of not only the film, but Bong’s whole filmography.

This learned helplessness at the hands of mighty institutions has long been a focus of director Bong’s astutely observed social satires. Gnawing away at the beating, bleeding heart of Mickey 17 is a tragic contradiction: People trap themselves in cycles of eternal recurrence for failings that are not their own. They internalize the flawed logic that powers such systems as capitalism, governments, or religions and let it drive them to destructive ends.

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When I first played Baldur’s Gate 3, two long years ago, it tested the limits of my gaming rig. Running a 2016 Nvidia graphics card — well regarded on its release and lauded as a speedy beast — I was able to make it through but cinematic moments stuttered every other second, and my queen, Shadowheart, occasionally froze in place. It didn’t really matter. The story was clear enough and the lag didn’t detract from how well-written the characters were and the multi-faceted ways you could interact with this fantasy world. I managed to make it to the game’s final act in one piece, with a full appreciation of how many hours I had sunk into flying around the lands, charming unsuspecting NPCs and talking to cows.

My copy of Baldur’s Gate was just beginning to collect dust when Nvidia sent us the new GTX 5090, an upgrade almost a decade in the making. Even though Baldur’s was the 2023 Game of the Year, fans are still getting on the bandwagon in 2025. It’s a game with staying power for the story. But do better graphics make it even more robust? How do the elves and fiends look now with AI-powered DLSS enabled?