"Don't Look Up" review — self-aggrandizing, unfunny, obnoxious mess of a satire
“You guys discovered a comet? That's so dope. I have a tattoo of a shooting star on my back.”
65 million years ago, the grand juries and judges of the universe saw it fit that the dinosaur population of Earth should be exterminated without prejudice by way of meteor from the heavens. Was there any justice in this decision? What crime could the dinosaurs have committed to warrant such a drastic course of action? These answers are now long-lost in the wreckage of the past with all that remains of the reptilian giants being their fossilized bones. The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event made way for was the arrival of mammal species on Earth and the eventual evolution of humanity, the true masters of the planet. Maybe the death of the dinosaurs was the hands of the universe clearing land for the future.
Our species has done so much in our short time here: we created fire, the wheel, the steam engine, the internet. We settled every landmass on the planet. We did what no other species has ever done before: we remade nature to serve our will. We gave up trying to live in harmony with the natural world a long time ago because we’re better than nature. “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings,” we say to the world around us. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” The problem is, we cannot keep going like this. The universe, for the sake of our planet, has put on its black cap and sent a new meteor to destroy us all. I would like to think that Don’t Look Up is one of the reasons why we have all been sentenced to death.
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| Meryl Streep as President Orlean. © Netflix. |
In the real world, the comet is a variety of issues the collective humanity faces including climate change and COVID-19. In the world of Don’t Look Up, the new political satire from Anchorman (2004) and Step Brothers (2008) filmmaker Adam McKay, the meteor is a very real rock falling from outer space. Created in a pre-pandemic world, the film’s primary goal is to serve as a climate change metaphor, although it now takes on a new meaning — or, rather, a secondary meaning — in light of COVID-19. McKay is angry and nihilistic about the state of the world but he is far too comfortable resigning himself to a smug “we’re going to die and it’s all your fault” attitude. His film then is out-of-touch and preaches exclusively to its choir. Whereas his other serious-ish political films, The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018), find specific, real-world issues to drill into, Don’t Look Up is a swing and everything and ultimately hits nothing.
The film is about two astronomers (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) who discover and large, extinction-level meteor headed straight for Earth with a collision date of just over six months. They take their findings to NASA’s head of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (Rob Morgan) who gets them on a plane to bring the news of Earth’s imminent destruction to the Oval Office. Along their madcap journey through governmental red tape, reluctant media outlets, and opportunistic corporations, they meet an assortment of characters played by some of Hollywood’s biggest names: the trashy President of the United States (Meryl Streep) and her failson (Jonah Hill), a pair of less-than-ethical news hosts (Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett), two popstar exes (Ariana Grande and Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi), a vicious tech CEO (Mark Rylance), and your average guy from Illinois (Timothée Chalamet). Running at an interminable 138 minutes, Don’t Look Up is a self-aggrandizing disaster. The film is far too long, the humour doesn’t land, and the film’s core ideas are rotten.
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| Scott Mescudi and Ariana Grande in Don’t Look Up. © Netflix. |
Don’t Look Up features some of the most disgusting editing I’ve seen all year. The film strives for a mile-a-minute, rapid-fire comedy, but the behemoth runtime makes the film feel exhausting. The humour is sadly missing from this would-be comedy. It has many good ideas for jokes, albeit even a few successfully launched jokes, but most of the film’s humour never seems to take off. Characters overstay their welcome and ideas that feel like SNL sketches become film-long plotlines. I think that the film would be far more engaging if it were only 90-ish minutes. Even the great Dr. Strangelove (1964), the grandfather of all political comedy, is only 94 minutes. But with his newfound “prestige filmmaker” status, McKay forgets the age-old axiom of “less is more,” something especially true of comedy. You can only hear a joke so many times before you want to punch the comedian in the nose.
The failures of Don’t Look Up are both practical and philosophical. The film wants to be about a lot of issues. The story is a parable about the failures of a bought-out government, the terrible effects of capitalism and profit-first mindsets have on the climate and society, the fake world of celebrity culture, the insular nature of social media, and the lack of confidence in science. However, the film doesn’t have any real analysis of world issues and leaves far too many gaps in its thinking. It is painfully obvious that the film is made by a group of entitled, rich, and self-congratulating liberals with no class-conscious. It’s pandering to its base and insulting to everyone else.
I hope that Adam McKay is prosecuted for his crimes against cinema.
Score: 1
Don’t Look Up is now streaming on Netflix.
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