MOVIE REVIEW

Adam McKay, the man behind the success of “Anchorman” and “The Big Short,” has failed to deliver with his latest movie, “Don’t Look Up,” a hybrid of his comedic and dramatic instincts that falls short in being insightful about social media, technology, global warming, celebrity, and human existence. The movie is a disaster and McKay appears to be out of touch with what is clever or how to get his audience to care. Despite a casting director, Francine Maisler, who has packed the movie with big, expensive names, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ariana Grande, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Jennifer Lawrence, and Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi), the movie fails to take advantage of this star power.

The movie's first bungled joke concerns DiCaprio's character, who plays a low-level astronomer from Michigan. McKay turns him into a mildly amusing Will Ferrell character, and he and his assistant Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) quickly discover that a comet is coming for planet Earth in just six months and 14 days. However, as they try to let the world know, they realize that no one cares about bad news about the future. Even the President of the United States, played by Meryl Streep, is more concerned about her polling numbers than an apocalypse. McKay needles the viewer with the joke that no one cares about the end of the world as much as the latest distracting scandal, reducing the movie's chief of staff, played by Jonah Hill, to easy bro jokes.

The movie's editing is complicit in the short attention spans that McKay rages against, intercutting different framed pictures of Streep’s President Orlean with various celebrities or hopping from one scene to another while characters are talking mid-sentence. Mindy and Dibiasky then take their message to the media, but the platform is a banter-heavy morning show where the producers try to smooth their story into a cutesy scientific discovery in between the aforementioned Grande incident. The astronomers become the media distraction themselves, setting them on contrasting paths of popularity. Moments when the chaos of "Don't Look Up" feels inspired, watching Leonardo DiCaprio use his Oscar-approved volume to scream “We’re all going to die” on a “Sesame Street”-like show is funny.

However, Blanchett is wasted on this movie's limited sense of humor, along with Lawrence, Streep, Perry, Melanie Lynskey, and Timothée Chalamet. The movie's plotting is not just anti-urgent but also makes one constantly aware of what it's not doing. Aside from continuously making the viewer scrape the walls of its hollow comic sequences for a laugh, it does not say anything new about how misinformation became a political cause or how scandals are the true opiate for the masses, whether involving a pop star or the president. The movie has little to offer about the role technology plays in this, with Mark Rylance playing a half-Elon Musk, quarter-Joe Biden tech guru who calls the shots even more than POTUS. “Don’t Look Up” thinks it's pushing many savvy political buttons, but it falls short in being insightful.Adam McKay, the co-creator of "Anchorman" and "The Big Short," proves that he's lost touch with his audience with his latest film "Don't Look Up." The film combines McKay's comedic and dramatic instincts, but it fails to be insightful about social media, technology, global warming, celebrity, and human existence. It only features anti-provocative jokes about how celebrity messiness compels us more than the death of our planet. The star-studded cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, and Ariana Grande, is one of the movie's few redeeming qualities. The plot is anti-urgent, and the movie fails to say anything new about how misinformation became a political cause or how scandals are the true opiate for the masses. The film's editing is complicit in the short attention spans that McKay rages against, with intercutting between different framed pictures of Streep’s President Orlean with various celebrities or hopping from one scene to another while characters are talking mid-sentence. While "Don't Look Up" has moments of inspired chaos, it ultimately wastes the talent of its star-studded cast and falls short of McKay's previous work.Adam McKay, the co-creator of Anchorman and The Big Short, displays a lack of his usual populist brilliance in his latest movie, Don’t Look Up, which falls flat in its attempt to be insightful about social media, technology, global warming, celebrity, and human existence. The movie is packed with big names, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ariana Grande, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Jennifer Lawrence, and Kid Cudi, but fails to make good use of their star power. The story revolves around a low-level astronomer, Dr. Mindy, played by DiCaprio, and his assistant, Kate Dibiasky, played by Lawrence, who discover that a comet is heading towards Earth in just six months and 14 days. Despite their efforts to spread the news, people are more interested in the latest scandals and distractions. The president, played by Meryl Streep, is more concerned about her polling numbers than the apocalypse. Jonah Hill plays her sociopathic chief of staff, but his character is reduced to easy bro jokes. The movie’s editing is complicit in the short attention spans it criticizes, jumping from one scene to another mid-sentence. While there are moments of inspired chaos, the humor is hollow and the characters are not fleshed out enough. Blanchett, Lawrence, Streep, Perry, and other talented actors are wasted in their roles. Don’t Look Up fails to say anything new about the role of technology or how misinformation became a political cause, and falls short in its attempt to be insightful about human existence.Adam McKay, the creator of comedies like “Anchorman” and “The Big Short,” fails to strike a balance between his comedic and dramatic instincts in his latest work, “Don’t Look Up.” The movie attempts to explore themes such as social media, technology, global warming, celebrity, and human existence but falls short in being insightful about any of them. Despite a star-studded cast, which includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, and Tyler Perry, the film is a disastrous comedy that lacks any cleverness or the ability to connect with the audience. Instead of being provocative, the movie tries to make anti-provocative jokes, which only add to the disappointment of viewers. Even the editing of the film contributes to its shortcomings, with the scenes jumping around in mid-sentence and cutting away from the story’s focus. The movie’s biggest name, Leonardo DiCaprio, is turned into a Will Ferrell-like character, which underuses his abilities as an actor. The movie’s plot, which centers around a comet that is heading towards earth in six months and 14 days, fails to elicit any urgency from viewers, and the jokes are often superficial, lacking depth. The movie’s attempts to address political issues, such as misinformation and scandals, do not offer anything new or insightful. In short, “Don’t Look Up” is a lackluster movie that fails to live up to its potential.