2.5/10 My 5th most anticipated film of 2021, “Don’t Look Up” will go down as one of the most disappointing movies of the year. My excitement came from the impressive cast and writer/director Adam McKay, who has made some of the funniest modern comedies (“Step Brothers”, “The Other Guys”) as well as his best film and one that still holds up, “The Big Short”. I had heard that this movie had a leftist spin, as McKay is a self-proclaimed democratic socialist and extremely far left. While my expectations were that this would be overly political (which ended up hurting his last movie, “Vice”), I at least expected this to be funny. I was extremely shocked that this movie wasn’t as political as I was expecting and even more surprising, not funny at all. I can disagree with the politics of a movie but still enjoy it if I get some genuine laughs out of it. However, I didn’t laugh out loud once for the entire 2+ hour running time. After the success of “Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood” and his Oscar nomination for his performance in the film, Leonardo DiCaprio had a slew of potential projects to choose from. He ended up picking this movie over other scripts like “Nightmare Alley”. It seems that he made the wrong choice as some of the richest people on the planet provide an overly long lecture to everyday folks while being complete hypocrites. This movie is about how dangerous climate change is and how people aren’t taking it seriously enough. There are several problems with this premise. First of all, DiCaprio owns six houses, many of which are beach front property. His carbon footprint is insane. Co-lead Jennifer Lawrence spent over $30K on food alone at her wedding and got an entire separate hotel room just for her wedding dress. McKay himself, who despises capitalism, just signed on with Apple to finance and distribute his next film. The same capitalist company who makes much of their products in China, away from regulations. This film is made from Netflix, which wouldn’t exist without capitalism. McKay will slam capitalism until it comes time to shut up and take their money so he can do what he wants. All of these Hollywood elites are complete hypocrites and them lecturing average people about not doing enough couldn’t be more out of touch. Also, McKay’s script complains that people who don’t listen to climate change alarmism are fools, yet he offers no solutions on what to do about climate change or how he or we can help. It is easy to bitch and moan about the state of things when you offer no solutions on how to fix it and aren’t even helping yourself. Again, much of this elitism attitude that clouds the movie could have been an easier pill to swallow if the movie would have been funny but it simply is not. McKay has stated that he doesn’t want to make silly comedies anymore that he was previously known for because he doesn’t see much funny in our current, depressing times. But for me, because life is tough and the world is such a dark place, I think we need silly comedies to distract us from our reality more than ever. I prefer fun McKay vs. the hypocritical, unfunny, serious one. Lawrence, who is a great actress, overacts here and gives one of her weakest performances. She is great with drama and even more action oriented roles like “The Hunger Games” and “X-Men” but comedy doesn’t seem to be her cup of tea. While this movie wasn’t as political as I was expecting, it still is overly political and much of the satire is lazy. Another issue is that one character cheats on his wife, which felt uncharacteristic of his character but never mind that. The problem is that he suffers no consequences for his actions as his wife takes him back with no repercussions, which felt like a gross subplot and rewarded the character for his misdeeds. As for what worked, a lot of Nicholas Britell’s score is effective, the visuals look good, the pacing is strong and you can tell the actors are having a fun time, particularly Jonah Hill. The best performance of the movie easily comes from Mark Rylance, who plays a silly character but plays it straight, reminiscent of how Leslie Nielsen used to play these types of roles. For a serious, Oscar winning actor, seeing him in this role was a lot of fun. After the disappointing “Vice” and this downright unfunny misfire, I think I’ve learned my lesson with getting my hopes up high for future McKay offerings. This is a rare misstep for nearly everyone involved. Don’t look up…showtimes for this movie anytime soon.
#YuleTideFear / #OnceUponATimeInHypocrisy / #CometitmentIssues / #ClimateChangeTheChannel / #TheDevilWearsNada / #ThisIsTheEnd2
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