Film Review: "Don't Look Up" -

Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” targets to be a cheeky satire that components a finger at capitalist greed throughout the interval of false data, nevertheless flat jokes and a tremendous cast severely undermines the film’s mojo.

“Don’t Look Up” is a Netflix movie that models out to bottle the chaos and confusion that we’re all dwelling by way of correct now: the outcome’s a discordant and confused film that does a wonderful job at capturing the distinctive mixture of exhaustion and anger that we’ve been lugging spherical for the previous couple of years. World-ending events have merely been coming and going, and we’ve turn into desensitized. It’s bodily unattainable for us to vary into additional anxious — we’ve received to indicate off the anxiousness and enjoy our lives not directly. These themes are echoed throughout the premise of the film; “Don’t Look Up” stars Leonardo DiCaprio as astronomy professor Randall Mindy and Jennifer Lawrence as PhD pupil Kate Dibiasky who uncover {{that a}} massive comet is headed straight in route of Earth. When the two received all the way down to share their findings with most individuals, havoc is unleashed.

The movie rests on the shoulders of Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, nevertheless Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Ariana Grande, Timothee Chalamet, and Cate Blanchett are merely quite a lot of the totally different names that make an look. Previous the core cast though, all people else’s look feels compelled, and it really doesn’t actually really feel identical to the characters are coming collectively and even together with one thing to the story. The roller coaster of emotions moreover makes it really troublesome to connect with any of the characters; all of them seem to veer from one extreme to a unique. Jennifer Lawrence’s character particularly swings between apathy and anger with alarming frequency. She handles an impending apocalypse with grace, nevertheless slips proper right into a depressive episode when her boyfriend breaks up alongside along with her. To be clear, there’s nothing considerably mistaken with this; the movie merely doesn’t take the time to fully uncover the character’s enchancment, leaving the viewers with a approach of whiplash and an incomplete picture of who Kate Dibiasky is. Each character goes by way of their very personal experiences, nevertheless in attempting to grab all of their tales, the movie is unable to create a compelling narrative and ends up bouncing wildly. The outcome’s a sort of cacophony moderately than the harmony we’ve come to depend on; the story flares up, then mellows down rapidly; the highs and lows come and go, in no way pretty letting you compromise in. The movie’s enhancing moreover feels discordant and frantic, switching from languid, lingering footage to powerful, panicked scenes.

The themes of “Don’t Look Up” echo these of “Wall-E” or “2012,” with additional  makes an try and ship a contact of comedy and satire to the mix. The issue is that the film is solely … not humorous. There’s a bit little bit of situational irony proper here and there, and the bizarreness might shock enjoyable out of you, nevertheless lots of the jokes don’t land. As an example, there’s a scene the place Meryl Streep addresses the nation throughout the face of an apocalypse, nevertheless spends most of her speech leaning into nationalistic ideology and exits proper right into a bathe of fireworks. Whereas it’s insane, it pales in comparison with the reality that we dwell by way of, making for very ineffective satire. Juxtaposing celebrity relationship data with doomsday data merely isn’t that humorous in 2021 on account of we’ve lived by way of it. The political commentary is blatantly on the nostril and the film begins to drag in a short while, notably with a runtime of two hours and 20 minutes. No matter its lofty aims, or perhaps ensuing from them, “Don’t Look Up” ends up feeling frenzied and chaotic and fails to ship one thing new to the desk.

Grade: C
Directed by: Adam McKay
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence
Launch Date: December 24, 2021
Rated: R

Image courtesy of ComicBook.com.