Don't Look Up
Year: 2021
Director: Adam McKay
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Mark Rylance & Meryl Streep
Runtime: 138 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 21/01/22
Director: Adam McKay
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Mark Rylance & Meryl Streep
Runtime: 138 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 21/01/22
We live in an age of political indifference to major global issues, where the super-rich can do whatever they want without consequence and the people in charge of running countries are more concerned about pleasing investors than the public they serve.
We need look no further than the currently ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to see how various leaders of the world have reacted to such a crisis, with many simply not listening to the experts advising them.
Adam McKay’s last film, Vice, was one that struck a chord with me despite not knowing an awful lot about the subject matter before going into it. But his most recent venture, Don’t Look Up, continues to go for the political jugular in a way we can all understand and relate to, now more than ever. Despite being filmed prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, it’s hard not to use recent events as a frame of reference for Don’t Look Up and just how frighteningly true it all is.
Whilst performing research for her Ph.D, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers a new comet inside Jupiter’s orbit. With some assistance from her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), the pair deduce that the comet will impact the Earth in six months’ time, owing to the size of the object, it will spell extinction for the human race. With the help of NASA Planetary Defence head Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), they present their findings to the President (Meryl Streep) with little success.
What transpires sees Kate and Randall trying to convince the general public that the fate of the human race hangs in the balance, all whilst the government, tech giants, and media act in their own best interests and pretend that nothing is wrong.
We need look no further than the currently ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to see how various leaders of the world have reacted to such a crisis, with many simply not listening to the experts advising them.
Adam McKay’s last film, Vice, was one that struck a chord with me despite not knowing an awful lot about the subject matter before going into it. But his most recent venture, Don’t Look Up, continues to go for the political jugular in a way we can all understand and relate to, now more than ever. Despite being filmed prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, it’s hard not to use recent events as a frame of reference for Don’t Look Up and just how frighteningly true it all is.
Whilst performing research for her Ph.D, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers a new comet inside Jupiter’s orbit. With some assistance from her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), the pair deduce that the comet will impact the Earth in six months’ time, owing to the size of the object, it will spell extinction for the human race. With the help of NASA Planetary Defence head Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), they present their findings to the President (Meryl Streep) with little success.
What transpires sees Kate and Randall trying to convince the general public that the fate of the human race hangs in the balance, all whilst the government, tech giants, and media act in their own best interests and pretend that nothing is wrong.
Don’t Look Up is a darkly dry satire about the state of the world we currently live in, where governments act only on social media trends and in favour of their investors; and news broadcasters are too afraid to tell people the truth in case they suffer a ratings dip.
The humour certainly wont land with everyone, and that included me a lot of the time, but I can’t say that it isn’t exactly far from the truth. I think that’s why I found it so humourless, because in the time between this film being made and it being released we’ve already seen this kind of scenario play out and it’s frighteningly accurate.
What worked? Well DiCaprio’s performance was alright, though nowhere near his best in the likes of Wolf of Wall Street and The Revenant. Meryl Streep was good fun in the film in a very clear Trumpian manner. But for me the best performance in the film goes to Mark Rylance as Peter Isherwell, a Steve Jobs-like tech mogul. Rylance’s childlike performance of the role was one of the few things that genuinely had me laughing because he’s just so creepy and simultaneously clueless.
The first act of the film was by far the best part of it, the whole set up, establishing who’s who and what role they play, it all worked really well and moved at a good pace. But especially once the film hits its midway point it begins to run out of steam, it becomes predictable, and the jokes (at least for me) didn’t land as well.
So, here’s what I wasn’t so keen on. Jennifer Lawrence’s performance was just kind of meh. Like she wasn’t exactly bad, but it didn’t feel like she cared. This is a woman I know can act, and can act really well, I love Jennifer Lawrence…but in Don’t Look Up I was usually having more fun when she wasn’t around. Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett were also kind of blasé about things…much like Lawrence I know these two can be incredible performers and I just didn’t feel it here.
Beyond underwhelming performances, the film is also littered with instances of bad CGI, previously mentioned jokes that just don’t land the way they should, and it’s also far too long. Coming in at nearly two hours and twenty minutes, I feel everything could have been sufficiently covered in an hour and a half.
Perhaps the reason why Don’t Look Up didn’t work quite how I wanted is because of everything that has happened in the world since the film was made. It was created in response to climate change, but ultimately viewing it in a post-COVID-19 state it’s kind of hard not to see the film as a realistic portrayal of events but trying to be satire.
For those who love politically charged films, then Don’t Look Up is sure to satisfy that craving. But I felt distinctly underwhelmed by the whole thing and wondering why I even bothered.
The humour certainly wont land with everyone, and that included me a lot of the time, but I can’t say that it isn’t exactly far from the truth. I think that’s why I found it so humourless, because in the time between this film being made and it being released we’ve already seen this kind of scenario play out and it’s frighteningly accurate.
What worked? Well DiCaprio’s performance was alright, though nowhere near his best in the likes of Wolf of Wall Street and The Revenant. Meryl Streep was good fun in the film in a very clear Trumpian manner. But for me the best performance in the film goes to Mark Rylance as Peter Isherwell, a Steve Jobs-like tech mogul. Rylance’s childlike performance of the role was one of the few things that genuinely had me laughing because he’s just so creepy and simultaneously clueless.
The first act of the film was by far the best part of it, the whole set up, establishing who’s who and what role they play, it all worked really well and moved at a good pace. But especially once the film hits its midway point it begins to run out of steam, it becomes predictable, and the jokes (at least for me) didn’t land as well.
So, here’s what I wasn’t so keen on. Jennifer Lawrence’s performance was just kind of meh. Like she wasn’t exactly bad, but it didn’t feel like she cared. This is a woman I know can act, and can act really well, I love Jennifer Lawrence…but in Don’t Look Up I was usually having more fun when she wasn’t around. Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett were also kind of blasé about things…much like Lawrence I know these two can be incredible performers and I just didn’t feel it here.
Beyond underwhelming performances, the film is also littered with instances of bad CGI, previously mentioned jokes that just don’t land the way they should, and it’s also far too long. Coming in at nearly two hours and twenty minutes, I feel everything could have been sufficiently covered in an hour and a half.
Perhaps the reason why Don’t Look Up didn’t work quite how I wanted is because of everything that has happened in the world since the film was made. It was created in response to climate change, but ultimately viewing it in a post-COVID-19 state it’s kind of hard not to see the film as a realistic portrayal of events but trying to be satire.
For those who love politically charged films, then Don’t Look Up is sure to satisfy that craving. But I felt distinctly underwhelmed by the whole thing and wondering why I even bothered.