Don’t Look Up - Movie Review

Critics Score - 7 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

We've all seen the asteroid headed towards earth movies, from The Day The Sky Exploded from back in the 1950's, through the Armageddon and Deep Impact films from the 90's to Greenland that came out a year ago. The more humorous Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is the a film that took the meteor hitting apocalypse premise with a lighter tone. But the new film from writer and director Adam McKay not only takes on the end of the world themes with humor, the satire present in the film is pervasive. Don't Look Up is very self-aware, it knows what it is and lays it on thick, like a steamroller that's lost it's brakes cruising down a street full of kittens, it's got the satire pedal pushed to the floor and not concerned with who or what's in the way. What McKay thinks about the economy, what his political allegiances are, his thoughts on the news, media, technology or anything else, I could care less about. If you do care, this film may not land, if you care a lot, this will be the cinematic equivalent of running your nails down a chalkboard. The brand of humor he’s selling is stinging, it’s got some bitterness, it’s timely and it’s sometimes off color. Some of it falls flat, sometimes it’s right on the money, most of the time it’s right in your face. But if you choose to watch this film open-minded and Don’t Look Up, you may find yourself more amused and laughing than bitter and drowning in the controversy.

SYNOPSIS - Our apocalyptic story predictably starts out with a Michigan State professor Kate (Jennifer Lawrence) sitting at her desk, checking star charts and then gasps slightly as she pulls up the image of a comet moving across the sky. But then Dr. Randall Mindy sits around with Kate and some other students and work on the trajectory of this object as it moves through our solar system and the reality sets in that this huge chunk of rock isn’t our friend. They’re able to get a meeting with President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her son Jason (Jonah Hill), but they’re met with somewhat obtuse skepticism and end up leaving the White House without any assurance of help from the government. Next stop is the press, Kate and Randall decide to take this sensitive information public and go on a morning show where Brie (Cate Blanchett) and Jack (Tyler Perry) meet them with the same dismissive attitude and try and put a positive spin on the terrible news. This slow descent into madness continues with the government kidnapping them and bringing them back into the oval office to pledge that they're going to put all the governments resources towards preventing this tragedy from happening.

By the time this huge chuck of extremely valuable metals smashes into our planet, we’ve been taken on a weird ride that navigates all the problems with society as seen through the lens of McKay’s screenplay and direction. This is a movie that McKay made for nobody other than himself, although the acting is good all around and DiCaprio does put on a nice show, it walks the fine line between feeling grounded and being a complete spoof of a film very precariously. It also provides some fascinating commentary of how we as humans tend to get in our own way in terms of getting things done, even with something as clearly universal in appeal as saving our own species. The technical aspects of this film are mostly fine, the editing and sound are good, the original score combines some interesting elements of horns and tecno that fit the playful tone of the film well. In all the film is well done, like The Big Short and Vice, Don’t Look Up is a good piece of cinema, but there’s a very specific target audience for this film, you just need to hope you're in the group it's aiming at.

SUMMARY - McKay’s take on how screwed up everything is is pretty screwed up in and of itself, it’s a mess, but it’s also pretty fun. At over two hours and twenty minutes, it’s definitely wore out it’s welcome by the finale, although one of the post credit scenes was hysterical. While the director might be using the moniker Don’t Look Up to stuff his agenda down your throat, if you can manage to set his views aside, there’s some fun and laughs to be had, even a few at him.