Premise: Two scientists discover a comet heading to destroy Earth in 6 months and struggle to get the world to take it seriously.
Believe it or not, I was actually optimistic about this movie. I hated The Big Short and Vice because I found them insufferably smug and patronizing. There are good things about those movies though. They have huge ensembles of talented performers. They could be very darkly funny. I was hoping that by turning to a wholly fictional story, the “I told you so” energy of Adam McKay’s last two movies would be missing. That would only leave the things I liked.
Nope. It turns out he hates fictional people just as much as real people.
Sadly, I don’t have much new to say about Don’t Look Up that I didn’t already say about The Big Short and Vice. It’s a movie about how McKay is smarter than everyone else and if you don’t like his movie then you are one of the idiots he’s making fun of. It so damn lazy.
The tone of McKay’s movies reminds me a lot of that infamous Crossfire episode with Jon Stewart laying into Tucker Carlson. While it was cathartic to watch in the moment, it always felt disingenuous. Stewart laid into Carlson for not taking his job of informing people seriously enough. When Carlson countered that Stewart had a responsibility to people too, Stewart hid behind the “I’m on a comedy show” excuse. That always struck me as a cop out. Stewart knew that what he said on his show carried weight and that beneath the jokes, he was actually informing people. He was asking for other people to be taken seriously while absolving himself of the same responsibility.
Don’t Look Up is the same idea. It’s a movie about how politics, entertainment, and business all distract us or prevent us from accomplishing anything. McKay takes all the shots he wants at Trump and the MAGA movement. He complains about celebrities, social media, and news as entertainment. He doesn’t really offer any ideas about how to make things better (unless saying “Can’t people just not be idiots?” counts). Then, if you call him on it: “The movie is a satire. I’m just a dumb filmmaker making dick jokes. It’s our politicians and leaders who need to fix this.” Either take a stand or say that nothing matters. Not both.
It doesn’t help that the movie isn’t very good either. For a satire, it’s pretty light on actual jokes. I never really understood the rules of this world. Who are the mindless public and who are the people worth saving? Or is McKay’s outlook truly so nihilistic that no one is worth saving? The dinner table scene at the end makes me think otherwise. It’s not like the film is walking this perilous tightrope that every filmmaker falls on: some noble but impossible task. People like Armando Iannucci and Jesse Armstrong have been making the same kind of social satire with despicable characters for over a decade and still manage to be funny and human. Just look at how The Death of Stalin is both incredibly funny while still having very tragic and human moments. Does Adam McKay even like making these movies? It feels like he hates making them and only does it because if he doesn’t, no one else will educate the mindless majority.
Attempting to separate the performances from the writing, I do like what a lot of the actors were doing in this. Leonardo DiCaprio as a low status character is a lot of fun. Between this and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, I’m really enjoying his trend of seeing how pathetic he can make himself. Jennifer Lawrence would’ve been great as a straight man commenting on the absurdity had the movie given her more. Stuff like her obsession with the general charging her for free snacks or annoyance over how the FBI captured her on her morning run are fun gags that she plays well. This movie could’ve benefited so much by focusing more on quirks than caricature. Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep play different kinds of awful women with a lot of verve. Mark Rylance makes some real choices as an anti-social Steve Jobs. It’s a shame that he played the same character better in Ready Player One. I do wish McKay would stop including pop stars in his movies. Ariana Grande is a very funny performer yet all she does here is act vapid and sing a boring song. I don’t think he realized what kind of weapon he had on set. Timothy Chalamet almost made his disaffected youth character work. It’s frustrating because if these people were given an actual clever comedy to be in, they would’ve been awesome.
Let’s see. That’s about a 700-word rant. That long enough. This movie sucks. Eventually Adam McKay will lose his disdain for his audience and characters and make something genuinely great, right? He keeps having the right pieces and assembling them the wrong way.
Verdict: Strongly Don’t Recommend
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