Don't Look Up (2021)

Certainly not this generation's Dr. Strangelove like Adam McKay hoped it would be.

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Directed by Adam McKay
Screenplay by Adam McKay and David Sirota
Produced by Adam McKay and Kevin Messick
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi, Himesh Patel, Melanie Lynskey, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep
Release Date: December 24, 2021
Running Time: 138 minutes

Adam McKay’s career has entered an entirely new stage, now that his long-running partnership with Will Ferrell has come to an end. These latest films show Adam McKay now in a state of creating prestige pictures, ever since The Big Short’s coverage of the 2007-2008 market crash, which he then followed with a not-so-traditional biographical picture of Dick Cheney in Vice, attempting to take a mocking stance of the much-hated VP. In trying to capture the ways in which the masses would react in a time of crisis, perhaps this is where McKay opts for more low-hanging fruit than ever, in what’s easily the Anchorman director’s worst film to date.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence star as two astronomers who discover an unknown comet, large enough to destroy Earth, is about to collide. In trying to set out a warning and a call to action, they are continuously brushed off by the President (Meryl Streep), two morning talk show hosts (Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry), and a billionaire who wants to mine the comet (Mark Rylance). In trying to pass off the warning and save the planet, they are continuously shrugged off one by one, until the sources they call upon turn for the more opportunistic, using what should be a worldwide emergency into an event for their own benefit. The message of Don’t Look Up becomes clear, in times of danger, the people need someone to come to, but if there’s nothing in it for those with power, why should the interest lie there?