Don’t Look Up (2021) Movie Review
Don’t Look Up is from writer and director Adam McKay and has the signature McKay tone but the premise is a little more absurd than his usual subject matter. While doing research one night, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers a massive comet on a trajectory to collide with Earth in six months. Fellow scientist Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) backs her discovery and together they go on a journey to warn others about the impending doom. Their crusade to tell people the truth and get the government to take it seriously mirrors real life.
The president of the United States, President Orlean (Meryl Streep), doesn’t really believe in science and is more concerned with her approval rating and getting re-elected than doing the “right” thing. Her son and aide, Jason Orlean (Jonah Hill), is clearly a giant buffoon who thinks everything is a joke. The parallels between this administration and the Trump administration is uncanny in case you were wondering. Mindy and Dibiasky take their concerns directly to the people by appearing on television shows including a morning show hosted by Brie (Cate Blanchett). The media is unsurprisingly more concerned with their ratings than with the truth. Later on in the movie, because it’s America the land of capitalism, a businessman named Peter (Mark Rylance) announces that he has superior technology that will help destroy the comet. His plan is to land drones on the comet and mine it for precious minerals first before blowing it up. Let’s save planet Earth but make a buck while we do it. It doesn’t get more American than that. Of course, this doesn’t pan out and the general public doesn’t start taking the comet seriously until it’s visible in the sky.
The whole movie is absurd satire that hits very close to home and at times feels more like a weird documentary than fiction. Despite the intriguing premise, Don’t Look Up struggles with the lack of depth for the story and the characters. McKay showcases the problems with society without ever really saying anything about them other than, “Yeah it’s bad and it sucks.” Not to mention most of the phenomenal actors in the cast go to waste. It’s almost like McKay couldn’t decide whether to make the movie a comedy, satire, or drama so he mixed them all up and had each actor choose whichever one they felt was best. The usually impeccable DiCaprio and Lawrence are all over the place and Lawrence doesn’t even get much of a character arc. Jonah Hill is reduced to a “bro” who has only a handful of funny lines. Streep’s character fares a little better, especially considering we’ve had presidents who would behave in this manner, but she isn’t in the movie nearly enough to help.
McKay’s most impressive scripts like The Big Short and even Vice have thrived off of the intelligence and wit on display. Don’t Look Up pounds you with the obvious downfalls of our society repeatedly and brings nothing new that we weren’t already aware of. The absurdity is neither funny nor telling and it’s a shame McKay couldn’t have come up with something more impactful. The parallels here are supposed to be about climate change and how we are ignoring science and not taking action. It’s a worthy parallel and an important message but McKay whiffs on the delivery of said message. He wastes his stellar cast and leaves his outstanding ability to break down complex issues into manageable and understandable stories severely under utilized. Instead he focuses on cheap jokes that really aren’t that funny and hammering home the point that society has glaringly obvious problems. Even his attempt to showcase the beauty of life (that will ultimately be lost when the comet hits Earth) by intercutting random montages of animals, plants, and people feels disjointed and ineffective. What could have been an emotional and revealing story about humanity’s faults winds up falling well short of the mark.
You’ll like this movie if:
1. You like satire
2. You want to see a lot of A-list stars in one movie
3. You want to see one of the best cameos from Ariana Grande
