Don't Look Up (2021)

It feels like a long time since Adam McKay was directing films like Anchorman (2004) and Step Brothers (2008). More recently he’s switched to real life tales to work with, winning an Oscar for The Big Short (2015) and following that up with the underrated Vice (2018). For his latest, he reverts back to fiction, telling the tale of two low level astronomers, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence who discover that there’s a ‘planet killer’ sized comet that will hit and destroy Earth in six months. They attempt to explain the situation during a meet with the president (Meryl Streep, with Jonah Hill as her chief of staff) but with an election imminent, the president is unwilling to announce the bad news to the world. DiCaprio’s Randall and Lawrence’s Kate decide to leak the news to the press, appearing on Cate Blanchett’s morning talk show to tell the world of their findings. From there on in, it’s a black satire, as the hashtag don’t look up trends with some believing the comet story and others refusing. Streep’s president is obviously based on Trump, ignoring reality in favour of good press, but the Trump satire has really run its course now, and although Streep is as good as always, it’s not as amusing as it should be. Don’t Look Up’s main issue is that the people it’s satirising will have no idea that they’re being lampooned, which is probably why the film has been produced by Netflix. Put this sort of cast together, call it a comedy, release it on streaming platforms, and the majority will think it’s hilarious, but instead of thinking “Wow do I really look at social media that much?” it will be “Hey they’re all tweeting and Instagraming like me, that’s really funny! Let me tweet about that!” Which, in the end, makes Don’t Look Up a success as far as viewing figures are concerned. And Adam McKay is a terrific filmmaker; Don’t Look Up is far from a bad film, it’s well written and McKay gets some very good points across. The performances are great throughout, including Mark Rylance chewing the scenery as a tech billionaire, proving that greed and money are much more important in this day and age than the small issue of human life. So it’s not bad, but if you don’t realise you’re being mocked then you’ll probably enjoy it a whole lot more. If you’ve appreciated McKay in the past, this will pass the time, but you know he’s capable of better. 6.2/10