Critical popcorn

Duncan Jones is the wonderful directorial mind behind the Sam Rockwell-starring Moon (2009) and then Jake Gyllenhaal vehicle Source Code (2011). Next up is his new Netflix series Mute that’s set to stream across the globe this year.

We’ll move on quickly from Jones’ Warcraft: The Beginning from last year because the new work seems to get him back into the good stuff and the video-game adaptation was pretty awful, I sensed a lot of studio input or misguided love for the in-game world that no-one really cares about.

Moving on, Mute stars Alexander Skarsgård, Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux, alongside newcomer Seyneb Saleh, in near-future Berlin. Skarsgård plays Leo, a mute bartender whose girlfriend Naadirah (Saleh) vanishes without a trace and so he begins a search for her deep in the darkness of the city.

Rudd and Theroux will play American surgeons who, so we learn, are some kind of clue into where she went. These new images give a little insight into the style we’ll expect and it’s somewhat 80s, even if in the future, but with a really nice sense of that Bladerunner neo-noir.

Written by Damon Peoples with the screenplay by Michael Robert Johnson, Mute will air on Netflix globally this year with an air date to be confirmed.