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Don't Look Up aims too high for its scattershot barbs to consistently land, but Adam McKay's star-studded satire hits its target of collective denial square on.Read critic reviews
Audience Says
Although it can be heavy-handed with its messaging, Don't Look Up tackles important subjects with humor and heart.Read audience reviews
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Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), an astronomy grad student, and her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) make an astounding discovery of a comet orbiting within the solar system. The problem: it's on a direct collision course with Earth. The other problem? No one really seems to care. Turns out warning mankind about a planet-killer the size of Mount Everest is an inconvenient fact to navigate. With the help of Dr. Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), Kate and Randall embark on a media tour that takes them from the office of an indifferent President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic son and Chief of Staff, Jason (Jonah Hill), to the airwaves of The Daily Rip, an upbeat morning show hosted by Brie (Cate Blanchett) and Jack (Tyler Perry). With only six months until the comet makes impact, managing the 24-hour news cycle and gaining the attention of the social media obsessed public before it's too late proves shockingly comical -- what will it take to get the world to just look up?!
Rating:R (Graphic Nudity|Drug Content|Language Throughout|Some Sexual Content)
What an engaging movie, with amazing performances and a message that is demanding of its audience. It also succeeds in reflecting our current societies and how we're not ready when face-to-face with disasters, including climate change. I loved it to bits!
This movie strikes a unique tone somewhere between comedy and drama, but ultimately underperforms at both.
Super Reviewer
Dec 27, 2021
Look, I appreciate cynicism but this is unbearably smug and simplistic. Honestly it pulls a lot of punches too (especially at Hollywood and the media) so it really isn't all that edgy, just fairly typical condescension and rage that's entirely unearned.
Super Reviewer
Dec 24, 2021
A scorched Earth satire that flirts with a literal scorched Earth, Don't Look Up is writer/director Adam McKay's star-studded condemnation of everything stupid and myopic in media, politics, and pop culture. Jennifer Lawrence plays a doctoral student who discovers a comet heading for direct cataclysmic impact with Earth, and she and her astronomy mentor (Leonardo DiCaprio) are trying to sound the alarm but nobody seems to be listening. Not the president (Meryl Streep) and her inept chief of staff/son (Jonah Hill). Not the greedy CEO (Mark Rylance) of a tech company. Not the media where morning TV co-hosts (Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry) are more compelled by music star breakups than pressing science. It makes a person want to stand up and scream about priorities, and that's McKay's point, one that will be bludgeoned again and again. This movie is animated with seething rage about the state of the world and the cowardice about facing obvious problems head-on. It's fit as a climate change allegory but COVID-19 or any scientific crisis could be applied as well. It's about choosing ignorance and greed, about deferring to our worst instincts, and those in power who profit from inaction. I laughed at several points, some of it good cackling, and the movie is dark to its bitter end. This is the bleakest movie of McKay's foray into his more sober, activist movie-making (The Big Short, Vice). It's less Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, exploring the foibles of humans reconciling their last moments of existence, and more Idiocracy, where there is a lone voice of reason and the rest of the population are aggravating morons that refuse to accept reality even if it literally means just looking up with their own eyes. In some ways, the dark laughter the movie inspires is cathartic after years of COVID denials and mask tirades and horse medicine. The satire is bracingly blunt but also one joke on repeat. If you're the right audience, that one joke will be sufficient. I don't think the movie quite achieves the poignancy it's aiming for by the end of its 138 minutes, but the anger is veritably felt. Don't Look Up wants us to save the world before it's too late, though the people that need to see the movie the most will be the ones fastest to dismiss it. Still, congrats to McKay for making a movie this depressing and relevant for the holidays.
Nate's Grade: B+
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