Don’t Look Up
Don’t look up.. Dont look forward..*
Just don’t look
If this movie is a metaphor about our apathy toward coming catastrophes it probably works, I just don’t think it’s very subtle or memorable or much else. Jennifer Lawrence was good, Meryl Streep was horrible as a female US president and an odd choose I thought, like Jonah Hill as chief of staff… okay. Vibe was all over place. Post credit scenes were silly.
Don’t look up.. Dont look forward..*
Just don’t look
If this movie is a metaphor about our apathy toward coming catastrophes it probably works, I just don’t think it’s very subtle or memorable or much else. Jennifer Lawrence was good, Meryl Streep was horrible as a female US president and an odd choose I thought, like Jonah Hill as chief of staff… okay. Vibe was all over place. Post credit scenes were silly.
Don’t Look Up (2021)
This is one of those shockingly bad films that comes along once in awhile which is packed with big name actors who, despite their best efforts, could not rescue it. It’s difficult to believe that writer/director Adam McKay was the same man who directed and co-wrote The Big Short (2015), which was a very well done film. Perhaps his co-writer on that project, Charles Randolph, might have made something of this turkey had he been employed.
Right out of the chute the premise of the picture was shaky, and had been done before in several iterations. To try to make an end-of-the-world black comedy humorous would be a very tall order no matter who were the writers. In this case it was the cinematic equivalent of a loud belch at a funeral.
Two scientists (Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence) discover and determine that a large comet will collide with the Earth in 6 month’s time, the impact of which will destroy the planet. The pair eventually are able to take this news to the President of the U.S. (Meryl Streep), and her son and chief of staff (Jonah Hill). They at first pooh-pooh the idea, but then later see it as a move to increase their re-election chances. In addition, a Steve Jobs/Elon Musk type character (Mark Rylance) latches onto the circumstance as a way to make trillions by bombing the comet and mining its large trove of rare earth metals.
Along the way we meet two news anchors, ala the Today show, one of which (Cate Blanchett) inexplicably falls for the nerdy looking DiCaprio. The other scientist (Lawrence) flees home to Illinois where she has a relationship with a stoner (Timothee Chalamet). We’ll spare you the ending, but it’s as consistently bad as the rest of the film.
The picture was not without some good acting. DiCaprio let out all the stops when screaming to the TV audience that this would be the end of the world. Mark Rylance did a very effective and creepy portrayal of a megalomaniacal CEO whose sole intention was to increase his power and wealth. Some of the other actors did their best, but it’s not possible to breath life into a dead script.
Despite the fact that the title –Don’t Look Up—was a signal that this was to be a comedy, it was 15 minutes into the movie before there was evidence of it. As the story dragged on, hammering away with one leaden satiric or comedic misfire after another, the task soon became to try to last through a little longer believing that surely the film would improve. It didn’t. By the time the credits and two epilogues wound through at a tedious 138 minutes we’d become numbed but yet flabbergasted that this picture was made at all. If one didn’t know better one could imagine that this was a satire about a cast of social justice types who have attempted to make a satire. At least that would have been novel.
Doc’s rating: 2/10